twist, snap
by st.concertina
Summary: Sakura is a study in how to fuck up, she's allowed. She's failed so many times it's a joke, but there are some lines that you simply don't cross. "I don't care if you're the Sage of the Six Paths, I don't care if you're Hokage. You have no right."
1. Chapter 1

**entitled:** twist, snap.  
**fandom:** naruto, narusaku, narusasu, sasukarin, basically an inadequate love song for those who suffered (no love for NH or SS here, but this story wasn't created to bash anyone. any resentment poised towards these two completely bullshit unions come from characters themselves.)  
**setting:** this story is anti-ending while still working with the bs the ending gave us. eventual narusaku (no rainbows btw), occupational sasusaku (that turns into eventual platonic partnership), a bit of casual multi-shipping. accidental, unwarranted (come on, maybe a little warranted) OT3ing. initially writing this it started off as really angsty and serious, becamse ridiculous and hysterically _stupid_, then became angsty and serious again. sorry for the whip lash.  
**warnings: **the demon children exist**.** heck, cannon is cannon, it's hell out here. sex, language, violence, adultery. basically keep off if you want your sanity intact and if you don't want to lose all respect for me _and_ your faves. will probs annoy a lot of people regardless of their pairing. everyone is OC because guess what, OC is the new IC. don't look at me, kishi's orders. also come at me with all your butthurt YOU-SALTY-COZ-YOUR-PAIRING-DIDN'T-BECOME-CANNON shit because it's really original, thank you.  
**disclaimer:** i own nothing that isn't already mine  
**notes:** when cannon imitates fanfiction, and fanfiction immitates cannon immitating fanfiction. Its fanception, except that we've _all_ been let down.  
**summary: **Sakura is a study in how to fuck up, she's allowed. She's failed so many times it's a joke, but there are some lines that you simply don't cross. "I don't care if you're the Sage of the Six Paths, I don't care if you're Hokage. You have no right."  
**note:** reminder to keep an open mind in order to enjoy this. i rage-write. I HAVE NOT BETAD BECAUSE THE PAPPARAZI SAY I AM DIFFICULT TO WORK WITH.

* * *

The picture frame, all the times she's picked it up, it's a wonder its not been sanded down to mere slivers. She has rubbed thumb raw on the corner above Sasuke-kun's head.

One day in June her mother broke the glass. It was an accident, she'd been cleaning Sakura's room after Sakura had expressedly told her never to go there. She was fourteen, a little privacy wouldn't be amiss.

She'd heard the tinkle of shards from downstairs. She remembers, she'd been sunning on the porch after the end of one of Tsunade's more vigorous training, she'd been up like a bolt slamming into place.

The back of her mother's dress was a print of lilies, it was pitiful to see her kneeling next to Sakura's dresser with a carpet brush – "Sakura-chan," She said to the shadow in the doorway, "You shouldn't keep this so close to the edge – "

Sakura had felt a towering in her chest, spiraling up so she nearly choked. "Get out, Mom!"

"Don't be rude," in between her mother's silicone gloves was the picture frame, she looked down and brushed the glass off with her rubber fingers. "Both of them brats, good for nothing troublemaker and a pouty deserter. I want to encourage you, Sakura-chan but you should ask the Hokage for another team."

Sakura felt the gaps between her knuckles close, when her fist balled they when white. "Don't touch that."

Her mother exhaled through her sharp little nose, pulling off the smug disapproval only mothers can manage so excellently. "It's just a picture frame. You can get another one."

Sakura felt red climb up her cheeks, her ribs closing so that her breath became shuttery and strange. She didn't want to get another one. She didn't want her mother in her room.

"It was an accident."

"Get out, mom," She breathed, "I'll clean it myself."

Her mother must have seen something in her face, because she obeyed. She set the frame where she'd dropped it, all slow and simple and final. When she got up it was gingerly, Sakura didn't remember a time before then that her mother could actually wince from getting up, like her joints hurt, like she was getting on in age. She worried, she hadn't realized that she'd worry one day.

Sakura's features though were frozen in reproach, too cold and dry for the tears. Her mother edged past her, when she was in the corridor she began to hum. Some catchy old lovesong from one of the civilian radio stations that used to play when Sakura was younger, sitting at the table with her homework, watching her mother split winter peas.

Sakura walked to the picture frame. Ino would call her ridiculous, Sakura has felt ridiculous before – being struck with the moon blind behind her eyes, waking up with cold stone beneath her forearms. There are things she can't protect, even if she dies trying. Naruto can, though. Protect. One day he might die trying.

She brushes the carpet with her open palm, forgetting the brush. Glass sticks to her clammy skin without cutting her, it glitters in the orange light spilling in through the window as the day dies. She turns the frame over in her glittering hands, the picture is undamaged, the scowl on Sasuke-kun's face and Naruto's sharp, sulky glare. She'd been smiling then, between them but not really _between _them. Sakura sees how they look at each other, and she doesn't doubt that Naruto can reach Sasuke-kun in ways she never can, should stop, and should not die trying. She is a paper screen, sheer.

She plucks the tinier shards from the carpet with her hand flat, they stick on her fingers like little thorns, not painful, just little pricks. She's not going to cry over a picture. Naruto promised he'd bring Sasuke-kun back, she does not wonder if, but _when_. She trusts Naruto's promises more than she trusts Sasuke's vengeance. It is not a matter of skill, but a matter of faith.

Naruto had smiled at her, wrapped in the hospital bed. Bandages had cut his face in half, he'd tried and almost died. Sakura always knew she was selfish, she just hadn't realized how much. She didn't know if she could stop.

Naruto's going to come back. She'll show him her hands, beneath the gloves, blemished in kunai scars and the raised skin of her knuckles, she'll have hands like his. Hands that have bled for something, hands for hard work, for sacrifice. She isn't going to wait around and let him carry the weight alone, maybe Sakura forced him, maybe she is just an excuse – but they are a team. Neither of them can live with the idea that the word 'team' means nothing.

It was a pity about the frame though. She wondered if Sasuke kept his and knows better than to hope, and she knows that Naruto has his somewhere, because she knows Naruto.

They'd bought the frames together with Kakashi sensei.

She breaks off the rest of the glass still clinging to the edges of the picture and picks the brush. She'll get the glass replaced. Its bad luck to break glass, or was that mirrors? She isn't sure. She brushes her knuckles under the skin of one bleary eye and laughs.

Whatever the odds, she knows that one knuckleheaded ninja is her gamble.

* * *

Sakura lifts a shoulder in a light shrug, twisting the sake bottle in front of her so that the condensation on the table turns into several, milky half-moons. She hadn't been in the Hokage Tower without being in an assisting capacity for years…were the coasters still where she left them?

"Sakura-chan," Naruto grins wickedly, he's teasing her. The last time he teased her she'd had her palms pressed against his back and his father's reanimated corpse smiling sheepishly at them. "What're you thinking so hard about?"

"I'm happy," Sakura lifts the sake bottle, she pauses to study the stamp on its bottom and sets it back down. "Nice brand, by the way. Well, I was thinking that I'm happy. I was happy when you had Bolt because he looked so much like you, practically a clone and I knew you'd be a great dad. I was happy when you got married because you finally got someone who would stand by your side."

"You stood by my side."

Sakura meets his somber eyes, a smile pulls faintly at the corners of her mouth. "You stood by mine too."

They smile at each other, strange and still. Sakura thinks that falling back into this easy friendliness should be strange, because they areeight years too late to be able to pick up where they left off. The lines between them couldn't be clearer if they'd been drawn with red paint. There's nothing to do but stare at Naruto as he stares at her, in these circumstances they've been living with for years, all grown up – him in his Hokage hat, a cracking smear of dried paint on his forearm, and her in her lab coat, smelling of antiseptic and laundry detergent.

She flicks her eyes away. "You've always meant the best even when you were being extraordinarily stupid. Look at things from Bolt's point of view, try to spend a little time with him." She tips the mouth of the bottle forward, then back, considering. "…Take it from someone who knows, Hinata can't do it alone."

The sake plucks out of her hand, the milky half-moons sweat and streak when Naruto drags the bottle towards his end of the table, away from her. "Are you alone, Sakura-chan?"

She laughs. No, she's not about to start a pity party. What's Naruto going to do about it anyway? When she was twelve she put her whole world in his hands, relied on him with the blind faith of a fool. When she was fifteen she realized that Naruto was no God, was not infalliable, was not bullet proof – even if he could bring Sasuke back, even if he would _always_ bring Sasuke back. Sometimes she thinks that it doesn't always have to be for her.

There is only so much she can ask of Naruto, so much she can wait around for him to understand. Sakura is the most selfish person she knows and even she stopped asking a long time ago.

"What's so funny?"

"It's just," She looks up at him again, his serious face. When had he gotten this serious? She wanted to poke his temples, where his forelocks started like golden brushstrokes. She flicks the brim of his hat, right between his brows. Naruto frowns, forbidding, but his stare doesn't shift. "I haven't seen you for a long time, Naruto."

"I'm sure the bastard will be back soon."

She shakes her head at his grumbling. "Sasuke-kun is Sasuke-kun," She fills up her cheeks with sulky air, "You've gotten really serious, you know?"

"I'm Hokage."

Sakura laughs. She's tipsy, but not tipsy enough to find everything _this_ hilarious. Naruto looks at her strangely, like he's worried or something – she sobers up quickly, wants to wipe that expression off his face, everything she is, she _chose_. If he gets any closer to pitying her she might punch him.

Sakura leans heavily on the table, back long, shoulders lax. Sake does wonders to loosen up the body, loosen up the tongue – Sakura still feels the faint ache of chakra exertion, the migraine in her temples a dull lull that'll surely boom to its full ferociousness in the morning. She feels tired and floaty, light as smoke, for all the honesty that spills out of her. "Like you dreamed. I knew you would be, you know," Sakura says, without a smile. "Like I knew you'd bring Sasuke-kun back, like I knew you'd save the village."

"But?"

Wow, Naruto could be observant when he wanted to be. The thought comes unbidden, a little irritated, because Sakura didn't realize that there'd been a lot she'd wanted Naruto to see, a lot she thinks he was stubbornly, deliberately blind to. She studies the ceiling, it is warm and watery yellow, like…butter. Another cup of sake and she'll be making a somnambulist's way home.

She gives Naruto a drowsy smile. "I've missed you."

His eyes are a sharper blue, like he'd been expecting her to skate around it forever. Naruto's become that sort of person. She wants her friend back. He's watching her seriously, listening intently, but Sakura isn't afraid of saying the things that are true – it's been eight years, and during that, the only time Naruto had actively sought her out, had _come_ to see her was the shadow of his presence next to her as she stared into a room full on incubators, hoping internally for the child's own sake, that the girl wouldn't have red hair.

She reaches up for his hat again, Naruto's pretty ridiculous. With his silence here being too reminiscent of his silence then. She'd taken comfort she didn't deserve and none that he'd given with his presence there on that day. Even though they hadn't spoken, even though he hadn't so much as said a reassuring word, he'd come and that was enough. She'd thought Naruto's here, even if Sasuke can't be…with Naruto everything isn't that bad. With Naruto this girl can grow up proud, and happy.

"I feel like we've been busy playing at being adults. Maybe I'm the only one who stayed the same?" She fiddles dumbly with the brim of his hat, "Well," She sighs, dropping her hand away "Never mind, good night, Naruto."

Naruto's fingers hold around her wrist, against the pull of gravity. Sakura blinks blearily at the contact, she's had two cups of sake – she is still sober enough to know better than to leave her hand lax in the warm grip of his. She should know better than to stay.

Naruto's hands are big enough that she's sure they could fan wide over an infants head, they are big enough to hold worlds and worlds and worlds, strong enough to move the earth – to move anything simply through the strengths of his own convictions.

This is Naruto with a borrowed arm she'd sowed back on.

The surgery had been difficult, reattaching veins, nerurons, assembling the proper networks for blood circulation, chakra pathways and motor functions, but when she'd finished that, sowing the skin and muscle back had been easy, had been as easy as darning the tears in Sarada's sleeve, the buttons of Sasuke's coats whenever they called to her in the cupboard he never opened.

There is a scar where his forarm begins, silver and raised where his sleeve slips away. The last time she'd seen it it had been pink and raw, puckering around thread, her neat needle work.

"Sakura-chan," he says hoarse, it drags her attention from the wound he'd never let her smear away, and up his hard chest, the shadows pooling at his throat. She keeps her gaze focused on his the indentions of his collar bones, at the hollow of his throat. Naruto says a whole lot with his eyes alone, things she is sober enough to know better about listening to.

There are things that have been done, things that have not been said, things that it is too late to hear. She's overthinking it, the gesture is meant to be reassuring. Naruto is holding her hand because he's trying to tell her it's okay. Sakura has blood in her cheeks, a flush she can blame on the drink she'd barely had – and Naruto hasn't touched her in…he hasn't touched her since the war.

She isn't sure how reassured she can be in light of their circumstances, she feels helpless watching this new generation walk about – seeing Sarada scoff about Bolt and praise her father with the blind adulation that daughters do. She loves Sasuke. She is tired.

Without wars to fight, nuke-nin who threat to destroy world peace, an avenger's life on the line…it's just her and Naruto, saying nothing at all to each other.

Her lips quirk in another valiant attempt at friendly smile. "I'm fine, Naruto."

"I can always tell when you're lying."

That, bizzarely starts a spark of irriation in her. "Really?"

"Always."

Naruto shouldn't speak with such certainty, like it should rob her of her own. The table between them, his thumb rooted to the pulse in her wrist. He's disarming her in every way. _Always,_ like he _knows _her or something – Sakura feels angry red in her cheeks, keeps her expression excruciatingly calm. Of course, Naruto knows her - or knew her best.

"I'm not sure you do," Sakura says, light. She looks in his eyes then, "You never did come clean by the way. Sai made me feel real stupid for no reason."

"Sai's an idiot."

"Still," her mouth cants to the side, rueful. Two can play at that game. "I'm glad I said something, even if you stopped liking me – we were, what, twelve when you had your crush? Well, I said to myself, if it was true, if it was anything more than being twelve, and stupid…" Her voice softened. "Naruto would definitely tell me something later. He'd definitely tell me what he felt, if he felt anything."

His grip weakens, which is exactly what she'd been going for. Naruto isn't allowed to touch her, not when he doesn't mean it, not when he hasn't looked for her foreight years – not when he didn't let her help him, not when he cut her off like she was a part of his life he was ashamed of or something.

Naruto doesn't say anything.

"I'm glad that neither of us have any regrets," She says, she doesn't know what she was expecting, what she'd wanted. For Naruto to confirm any of it, to tell her that he'd given up because maybe he hadn't had the heart she'd expected from him, determined and unconquerable. That maybe it really was a crush, tell her what everyone else was thinking, what everyone else toted about as unshifting fact. That he'd loved the idea of her, had wanted her because she'd been easy for him to want then. That wanting her had been about winning yet another match against his rival. That she was just Haruno Sakura, that girl who lied to him, that girl he didn't remember loving. His eyes don't drop, so she lets hers. "I'll call Bolt over for dinner some time, you should come too." She pokes him between the eyes and pulls away fully, straightening up from the table and rolling the ache out of her shoulders. She drags her arm, the close of his fingers loosens, and she is slipping away. "And this time bring Hinata and that cute little munchkin of yours. I could eat her up."

Naruto lets her go.

"I'll take this," She plucks the sake up with a mischievous wink, a pleasant flush in her cheeks. "Since," she motions smugly towards the seal no doubt stamped on his navel, "Just coz you can't drink your problems away doesn't mean I shouldn't. Man, with the day I've been having! If Sarada complains anymore about Bolt I'm gonna have to sit her down and make her admit she's in love with him or something, seriously." She's chatting like an inane housewife, all light and nonchalant, and no doubt how she should be behaving at this age. Like her greatest concern is when Sasuke will be back, if Sarada's done her homework. "Good night, Naruto!"

"Sakura." He says helplessly.

She yawns, arms out and meanders out the door, chipper as the morning. "Get some sleep!"

Naruto's a fucking coward.

* * *

She doesn't make the invitation. Mostly because she's already tried it before. It had been painful to suffer Hinata's sweet embarrassment, the stuttered lie that Naruto had business to attend to – the first two times it happened Sakura considered stomping over to the Hokage monument and beating the shit out of him. Tell him that she's trying, why won't he? Does he hate her that much?

Naruto's a lousy idiot.

Hinata is lovely company, so lovely Sakura wants to swandive into a food processor. She is everything a wife should be, sweet, cultured and Himawari is the cutest little button in the world. Bolt, Sakura agrees with Sarada, is a pain in the ass. Poking at the winter peas and sneering at her, "Look," and Sarada has her father's scowl. "It's you."

She thinks considering Sasuke and Naruto's history these two might have gotten along better. Hinata apologises sheepishly for his behavior but does nothing to curtail him and apologizes for Naruto's refusal to attend without condemning him.

Sakura just sighs, she likes Bolt because she understands where he's coming from but all that teen angst is starting too early for it to be natural. He's _eight_.

Having a little misunderstood Naruto around and a mini-Sasuke would just about drive her to drink.

"Why do you even invite them?" Sarada once demanded.

Sakura had been washing the dishes after the visitors had left, Hinata had even offered to help. "It's rude to stand in doorways."

She stepped crisply into the light of the kitchen, "I don't want to be friends with him."

"You don't have to be friends with anyone," Sakura had frowned, "Why don't you like him anyway?"

"He's an idiot." She answered the last question, then added absently, as if she was already thinking about other things. "And you do want us to be friends. Just coz dad and the hokage were buddies centuries ago."

"Sarada, we're not forcing you to do anything."

Sarada scoffed, "Great. He's a stupid, rude, spoilt-brat, just coz his dad's hokage – all he does is whine about what a shitty dad Hokage-sama is, but atleast… Well, I just hate jerks like that."

Sarada hadn't had to say it but Sakura had heard it anyway.

At least his dad is here.

* * *

She is sixteen and looking through a clothing store. She doesn't want to buy anything, but she finds her hands pouring over green fabric all the same – it's a furisode, the shopkeeper tells her it goes lovely with her eyes, with her hair, with her skin, and everything else she tells every customer that passes through there, halfheartedly plucking at the lot.

Sasuke and Naruto have been gone a year already, Tsunade-sensei says they might be coming back any day soon. Sakura hopes it's before the winter festival tomorrow.

She doesn't have anyone to go with, so she doesn't buy the furisode.

She leaves the shop and meanders down the street, her basket of supplies thudding against her hip. If Naruto was here he'd have heckled to carry it for her, she'd never have gone into the clothing boutique, she'd have been too embarrassed. Maybe he'd have followed, maybe he'd have agreed with the shopkeeper. He might be coming any day now.

She finds herself forgetting what Sasuke looks like, for all his excruciating prettiness. He has been gone her whole life, she is used to him being gone, with Naruto it's different – it's different enough to matter.

Something hits her cheek, when she touches the skin beneath her eye it is cold and it dissolves beneath her fingertips. A snowflake. Sakura looks up, soft gasps around her. It hasn't snowed in Konoha for…nearly a decade. The last time it did she was seven, her father swung her up on his shoulders and danced out into the freezing air with her. They'd gotten pneumonia. Her mother had yelled.

Snow falls now, light and slow – it catches in her eyelashes, she thinks of long, golden ones, dusted with frost. She thinks of Naruto, his red nose, the turn of his mouth.

That was the last time it'd snowed for her.

Sakura starts running, her boot squelching on mud, when she arrives at the shop the shop keeper only gives the mud she tracks into the store one disparaging glass after she realizes Sakura is tugging at the green furisode. Breathless, with colour in her cheeks, _this one_. She wants this one.

She wants to go to the winter festival. She wants to go with Naruto, she wants to tug his sleeve and eat yakitori with him. She wants him to smile at her again. She wants to look back at snow with her heart wide open, warm, not reeling, flinching at the turn of his mouth.

She thinks of his hand, large, warm, around hers.

She thinks of Naruto.

* * *

He comes back alone. She feels hurt that he didn't come to see her right away, a hurt she was ready to dismiss – but the injury deepens when he stays over a week without seeking her out. Sakura goes to look for him, a thick beanie muffling her ears, scarf and gloves, she looks for him at his apartment, at the training grounds, in the Hokage Tower, at Ichiraku's, at the Hokage Monument.

"Hm," Kakashi says when she affirms that yes, she's looked _everywhere._ Pakkun's curled in his lap, radiating heat like a stove. Sakura's teeth still chatter from the cold. He looks up and the corner of his eye crinkles, "Don't worry about it, Sakura. He'll come around."

She wasn't aware that they were having a fight? Sakura just clenches her jaw, huddled in his kitchen, her hands stuck beneath her arms in an attempt to swallow down the warmth of his apartment. She nods, her brow a stubborn furrow. Last time Kakashi smiled at her like that was on the hospital rooftop, four years ago. When she'd been stupid enough to believe him.

She sighs and trudges outside, Kakashi might have been a rotten cheater with that sharingan eye of his, but he'd at least _tried_ to offer her tea. Snow dusts her shoulders as she walks through the shop district, intent on making her way to the Yamanaka's flowershop. She regrets not accepting.

In the end neither of the boys had come back in time for the festival. Not even Rock Lee sought her out. Sakura meandered down the frozen street, a cyclist with crates stacked on top of each other idled past her. It's not like she'd _wanted_ him to, but it'd been strange, Rock Lee always asked her.

Bright yellow light spilled out of one of the shop displays, a girl pulling on her mother's sleeve was pointing to a mannequin sheathed in a dress of pink cotton with ruffles pouring beneath the hem. Sakura stopped next to them, a smile pulling faintly at her lips. It was a really girly dress, something she would have wanted when she was younger. Now? Nah. It was cute though.

The mother began to scold her daughter, halfheartedly and they dragged away, continuing home presumably.

Sakura entered the warm flower shop, UV lights shining on the pots as she heard banging in the back room. Ino, no doubt. Sakura waited patiently, glad to enjoy the plentiful color. This late she was only one of two people in the flower shop, she was surprised they hadn't closed early. She floated between shelves of roses and daffodils, peering at the packed earth and stirring her fingers against the petals.

"Oh, Forehead," Ino called, surprised. She carried two pails beneath each arm, her apron immaculate, clean purple. "What're you doing here?"

Sakura shrugged, coming forward to pick one of the pails at her friend's feet. "Day off. How'd the festival go?"

Ino's skeptical frown was strange, but she dropped it at this line of questioning, her grin was full of feminine smugness. "Jeez, Forhead. I should have started dating civilian guys ages ago, they can be so cute! I mean, I'm not giving up shinobi, I mean that muscle definition – but Yoshiro was really, _really_ nice," They moved towards the greenhouse at the back. "We tried caught goldfish, and I won him a bear and he blushed so hard. It was so cute."

Ino expounded on the merits of civilian boys and Sakura listened, happy that Ino appeared to be having fun. Especially after the week they'd been having at the Yamanaka flowershop. Winter had taken them all by surprise, they'd lost merchandise to the bruising cold and had had to quickly mobilize themselves into making adjustments to the greenhouse and the transporters they did business with outside of the village. Winter or not, when people wanted roses they needed roses. "It's your fault I swear, I had to look for a good batch in all this frostbitten stock we had when Naruto came in here asking for some the other day. Couldn't very well let him give my best friend a subpar bouquet, even if she does have a superhuman forehead, what? It's true! Hey, Sakura…what's with that look on your face?"

To say that she felt the earth shift wasn't the half of it. Sakura's stomach dropped well below her feet and her axis fairly _flipped_. "…You saw Naruto?"

Ino stood from where she'd been leaning her elbows on the counter, pushing her cornflower hair out of her eyes, astounded. "You haven't?"

Sakura felt an embarrassed blush coming on, Team Seven wasn't exactly the best team in the world when it came to communication, and Ino didn't know it but she'd always envied the easy camaraderie of Team Ten. To admit that Naruto hadn't come to see her was strange to other teams who were all so well synchronized. The worst thing was Sakura didn't have to lie to Ino because her own mortified silence said enough, she was hurt.

Naruto had had time to go gallivanting around but not to see her?

"Hey," Ino folded her arms, frowning. "Are you serious? I thought – "

"They weren't for me," Sakura pasted on a smile. She raised her shoulders in a little unnatural shrug. "Yeah. Um, Ino, I'm glad you had a nice time with Yoshiro. He seems really cute."

"Sakura…"

The corners of her mouth were uncomfortably tight, "Well, see you, Pig!"

She walked fast enough until she could be sure Ino wasn't following her. She found herself beneath the glow of the yellow poured over her face, it looked warm. Above the sun was done shining, had been swallowed by blue winter clouds and the fast approaching evening. Already the streetlights were coming on, flooding against her back. Sakura tipped up her chin, closed her eyes and made a disgruntled hum. When she saw Naruto she was going to pummel him.

Maybe he was avoiding her. Maybe he thought she was upset Sasuke didn't come back and was trying to escape her wrath – wrath which she had none of – Sakura rubbed her temples with the heel of her palm and sighed. Sasuke was going to be Sasuke, sure she was curious, but dragging him back wasn't on her to-do list unless he was out desecrating shrines and letting darkness swallow his soul or _whatever_. She was a little disheartened, but she wasn't _mad_.

Maybe that's why Lee didn't ask her out. She pulled her palm away and studied it, hovering over her eyes, like, did she have Reserved For Uchiha Sasuke printed in ink on her forehead or something? She liked Lee, his advances while mostly unwelcome (because she didn't want to hurt his feelings or lead him on) – were still affirmations that she was _somewhat_ interesting. The idea that they were following some bro-code was ludicrous, considering that Sasuke hadn't so much as batted a (probably) asexual eyelash her way, and she'd been going on with her life perfectly fine, thank you very much.

She just thought she'd have gotten the memo about Naruto arriving earlier.

If Sakura was supposed to have gotten roses from Naruto she'd have gotten them. It didn't take a long time to come upon the conclusion of who else he could have gotten them for. Well, Sakura didn't have the right to interfere, it was none of her business.

But, she turned away from the display with a tight feeling in her chest, and the back of her throat feeling odd. Like someone was squeezing her airways. Hinata had always loved and admired him, Naruto deserved someone like her – sweet and kind. All Sakura ever did was hurt him.

She walked, chin tucked to her chest. The fur trim of her coat pulled up against her ears. Sakura studied the ground, going on autopilot, she didn't feel like going home anymore. She actually didn't really feel like…going _anywhere._

Well, actually she _did_ have a right to be angry. She was his teammate. Yeah! She had every right to be upset that Naruto found other people more worthy of his time than her, that he'd even seen Ino-Pig, and no doubt Kakashi – no wonder he'd been so uncomfortable and evasive! Naruto's weird behavior, his avoidance and everyone's pointed embarrassment about it made her feel like she was some sort of criminal. Sakura hadn't done anything wrong. At the very least they were friends, right?

Well, she sniffed, stopped. Her chest seized with surprise, and horror – No, she stuffed her mittene'd knuckles against her freezing nose. What the actual _fuck?_ Was she - _was she tearing up?_ If anyone saw she'd _further_ cement herself as the biggest crybaby kunoichi Of All Time. But – she drew back into an alley, seeking their shadows. Sakura huddled behind a dumpster like a homeless person, eyes wide and begging her composure back. _God damn it_, why was she always in this position? She caged her eyes with her frost-lined mittens, glaring at the ruddy brick opposite her, guilt blooming hotly between her ribs. She took deep breaths, fast and panicked, wide-eyed and furious with herself. Just a minute and she'd be okay. Just a minute and she'd walk home and _not_ cry.

She wanted to find Naruto and beat the shit out of him. Also, she never wanted to see him again. Two whole years she'd waited, feeling useless, hoping that when he'd come back everything would slip into place, she'd stop worrying about him and Sasuke killing each other over some misunderstanding. She'd thought he'd be the same boy he'd always been, that maybe he'd be as impatient to see her as she'd have been to see him.

Her back slumped against the grimy wall, here she was squatted between a sushi restaurant and a tailors, like some sort of thief. Trying to make sense of the maelstrom within her. Ugh, she was so _stupid_. Her fingers dragged beneath her beanie, crawling into the hair behind her ears. She was…really…really stupid.

* * *

Sasuke kisses her first.

She's more surprised than anyone, but really not. The content of their conversation stirred a lot of feelings up. Mostly it's so _typical_ that he's camped within the borders of Samurai country, because two things are unshakably true about Sasuke; that he's always going to have ridiculous hair, and that he's always going to go waltzing into places where he's _least_ welcome. Places were he _is_ welcome, let's say Konoha, are avoided with the dexterity of a man at a high class party avoiding even the most minor faux pas.

Sasuke is just one huge _snob._

Sakura stutters minimally around him, mostly because she's grown a spine, but also because Sasuke still rightfully kind of scares her and she's been in love with him for like, what, _five_ years? The red he summons in her cheek is an involuntary, conditioned response from years of acceding to him. These days the red in her face around Sasuke doesn't simply come from girlish blushing, but sometimes from pure _rage._

She nearly demolishes the tree line when he makes the mistake of ignoring her and trying to pretend like he isn't there. Like she didn't just _see_ him hastily clearing camp. Sakura's been travelling for six days, she is exhausted, she can get a million miles away from Konoha but it's always going to stab between her eyes like a goddamn reminder.

She sighs and drops her butt on a stump. "Sasuke-kun, come _on_."

He doesn't answer to her whisper. Fuck, she didn't come looking for him so she could sit on his dick, so he really has no reason to be avoiding her. Sakura isn't here to have his babies, _god._

She stares blankly at the frosted grass between her toes, he's still there, hanging ominously in the trees like some sort of invisibility-cloaked three legged monkey. Her body feels stiff, her hand slips into her thick cloak and pulls out a slightly bent cream-coloured envelope. She drops it on her knee and stares at it for a long while. Sakura irons her palm over it, using her knee, but she still can't straighten the crook around the corner.

Sakura drops her efforts and leans her temples into her fist. "It's Naruto, you idiot."

When he doesn't appear she scowls.

"God damnit Sasuke-kun, I said the magic words didn't I?" And really, she could be deaf and still hear the bitterness in her own voice. Being tired and cold and having her whole life feel like some kind of cosmic joke calls for a little grouchiness. There is no lie. "_Na_-ru-_to_." She sighs, breath pluming heavily into the air. Softly she explains, "Naruto's getting married. He'd like you to be there."

She closes her eyes, shoulders dropping. Sasuke's being unreasonably difficult but Sakura isn't really in a hurry to go home. The whole thing seems like a chore. She sighs. Sakura has done more sighing in the past hour than she has in her whole _life_. She scrapes her heel forward, watching ice dust beneath the sole of her boot. Sakura pulls back her foot and scrapes it forward again. The envelope slips into her lap. She concentrates on digging a furrow into the ground, keeps her chakra circulating to keep her warm just in case she has to wait all night or something.

She doesn't, actually. She's surprised out of her distraction when she sees his feet landing lightly on the snow. She's almost got a foothill of snow gathered now, if she leans forward she can shape it into a pointy mountain but that would take effort and interest she really does not have. Sasuke makes no move to take the envelope, and she, no move to give it to him.

"To who?" He asks.

Of course he knows to _who_. Sakura looks up, narrowing her eyes at him. Sasuke almost _glows_ in the dark, he is so pale and pretty that even her attraction to him doesn't stop her from wanting to _tear his eyes out_. "Sasuke-kun." She says simply, with no intonation. It's a warning. Not to play dumb.

Sasuke knows perfectly well. He doesn't blink, mismatched eyes made for holding people in uncomfortable staring contests.

Sakura blinks first. Fuck! Goddamn sharingan, _ugh_.

"Well, he's too busy with Hiashi to come and stuff," She smiles, forcing herself to be light and pleasant. "Naturally I volunteered."

Why is she making excuses for Naruto like she's some uncomfortable third party in a lover's quarrel? Wait. This is her whole life really.

Sasuke stares at her for a long while, like longer than five_ seconds_, this is record time really and if she were younger she'd have started to preen and make her own wedding plans, but right now war-seasoned-aint-got-time-for-this Haruno Sakura feels a scowl come on and has the unbearable urge to touch her cheek just in case there's something on her face.

"No."

"What?"

He turns away crisply and begins walking.

Sakura groans, really not into running into the cold dark for him and launching into a spiel about bonds and shit. She's tired and _freezing_. "Sasuke-kun!"

He's disappeared into the shadows and Sakura utters a long string of tangled curses before she stuffs the envelope back into her cloak, launches up and trudges into the undergrowth after him. It says a lot about his character development that he's not taken into the branches and made her run after him, actually either Sasuke's on drugs or he's actually taking a pace which makes following after him _possible._

Sakura swats a low hanging branch out of her way, fuming. "Could you at least tell me _why_?"

"I'm busy." Sasuke answers, she glares daggers into where she supposes his duck butt ends. It's night time and the moonlight keeps getting cut across with swathes of black clouds, making the path ahead of her intermittently blue dark or pitch black.

"Doing _what_?"

He's taken two years to find himself, his continuous absence from the village doesn't need rocket science to figure out. Sakura would have a hard time going back to the village that murdered her family too. Also, she can only assume that Naruto and Sasuke have had another really dumb spat. This time she can fairly guess that it was about Taka, because the last five inns she's been to have all had keepers who told her about a tall, dark, handsome stranger asking for information on a skinny saw-toothed Mist nin, a red-headed hell cat in a miniskirt and a giant garlanded in woodland shrubbery and an assortment of parakeets.

Sasuke sells the whole dark stealthy ninja persona well but he's really embarrassingly useless at subtlety when it comes to looking for people or covering his tracks. If he hadn't been holed up with Orochimaru all those years ago in those secret bases then Team Seven would have no doubt eventually found him yelling about Itachi in a village square somewhere.

Sakura however, feigns ignorance out of respect, and because she tries to be tactful about Sasuke's feelings and his delicate Uchiha pride.

She can _hear_ him grinding his teeth. "Stuff."

"Take, like, a week off."

"No."

Sakura nearly pulls her hair out until she realizes they're heading _out_ of Samurai country. She's a little relieved, this place gives her the creeps. She trots up a little so she can keep by his side, and Sasuke and her walk in silence.

She can almost breathe easy and pretend like this is normal. The last time she and Sasuke were alone he tried to strangle her. She's cataloged a safe distance between them because she can only rely so far on Sasuke's relationship with Naruto. Baby steps. She's not completely forgotten. Just coz she's forgiven him doesn't mean she trusts him completely.

Sakura gulps the ice-laden air, it shards the back of her throat. She peeks at the moon as it rehearses its disappearing act. A little quiet never killed anybody. The uncomfortable gnawing in the pit of her stomach abates a little, she stops going over apologies for not being Naruto and stops trying to make sense of everything that's been crowding her ever since the war ended.

They make unhurried progress, saying nothing. Her heart softens a little, she imagines Sasuke making the journey alone, worries idly about his lack of stealth. Last time she checked there was a pissed Raikage calling for his head.

It must be nice though. A little lonely, no doubt – but she thinks she could do with some of it. So there could be nothing but the moon in the sky and terrain to travel, and Konoha and all its regrets could be miles and miles away, could be forgotten.

She drops the thought, aiming a chagrined smile at the sky, chopped up by the tree branches, spliced with moonlight. Sasuke might be out here but that doesn't mean he's forgotten about Konoha either. Neither of them are so naïve.

They go on like this for three hours, cross the border. In another hour night will start to slink away. Sakura doesn't really want it to. The woods thin, they crest a hill and look down below. Sakura can make the vague outlines of a small house, built in the old-style of the Uchiha dojos. Sasuke explains shortly that it's one of his family's old haunts. It's not unheard of, influential clans still have their ancient holdfasts over areas where they'd waged war. She nods dumbly, too exhausted to doggedly pursue conversation that Sasuke has, for once, actually _initiated_.

They go in. It's surprisingly clean. When she sees the coats hanging within she realizes that Sasuke frequents this place a lot. She shoots him a suspicious look, but Sasuke's tucking his shoes in the corner and Sakura drags her boots off, cursing their myriad of buckles and stumbles up onto the tatami after him. Sasuke nods from where he'd been waiting for her and continues across the corridor. He stops before a shouji screen with the detail of cranes and tells her it's her room.

Sakura's suspicious look cranks up a few million watts, "Please don't tell me this is an elaborate scheme to get me to drop my guard down so you can sneak off into the night."

Sasuke holds her disgruntled glare for a long while before he realizes she's going to be annoying for _forever_ unless he actually deigns her with a response, "I won't run away."

"Why'd you even bother with a camp when you were this close here."

He shrugs. "I was going into Samurai country, not out."

"Oh," she says dumbly, feeling her face flush. "Sorry."

"Hn."

"I mean, it's stupid of you. I doubt they're there and it's dangerous – but I'd have been okay camping out with you. I'm not some coddled princess."

Sasuke's probably used his word quota for the month in the past hour with silences like that.

"It's not like I'd have crawled into your sleeping bag or something, Sasuke-kun. Jeez."

Sasuke actually looked embarrassed, then he looked annoyed. It did strange blotchy red things to his face. "That's not it." He grit his teeth. "Stop being annoying."

"You say the sweetest things," Sakura rolled her eyes, stepping into the room and delicately slipping the shouji screen shut with like, the back of her foot. "Good night, Sasuke-kun."

"…Good night, Sakura."

In the morning she woke to Sasuke grunting manfully around the dojo dummies, she rubbed the sleep from her eyes and they indulged in some no-chakra taijutsu. It was actually nice. Like, Sasuke actually took her seriously enough to aim for her face when he punched instead of pooh-pooing around for safer areas like her arms or her feet like dumber, sexist boys did. He was a little faster than her, but she made up for it with strength and precision. Despite being one armed he'd managed to perfect his balance, but the few times she'd kicked his feet from under him he'd stumbled inelegant. So not down pat, just yet.

It was a light spar and then she slumped exhausted at his kitchen table while Sasuke doddered about making them breakfast. Sakura was pretty sure she was dreaming but didn't want to go through the trouble of pinching herself. It was so weird. It was like her and Sasuke were hanging out. Like actual teammates. Like they'd suddenly slipped into an alternate reality where Sasuke wasn't a murdering psychopath and she wasn't weeping over his unattainability.

He sat opposite her and she didn't stare at him. Well, she only stared at him a _little._ It'd be a crime not to. Sakura had sort of given up on Sasuke actually being sexually interested in her, her scrutiny was well-deserved really. Sasuke was too pretty not to be appreciated, if only aesthetically.

She was just really glad that Sasuke hadn't chased her away yet. Or like, murdered her.

She pushed a bit of egg about on her plate and opened her mouth to broach the topic of the wedding again.

Sasuke intercepted this attempt and thwarted her, "No."

Sakura had hoped she'd brave the ceremony with atl east one _other_ person who didn't want to be there. She tucked her lips into an annoyed frown, glaring. It wasn't like _she_ wanted to talk about it either. "What the hell is up your butt, Sasuke-kun?"

"This isn't up for negotiation."

He didn't even look up from his plate. Sakura was reminded of her parents denying her eight-year old requests with firm no's. Sasuke navigated his chopsticks around his food with elegant, economical motions. Sakura briefly considered if he'd let her get away with shoving his face into the omelette.

"I know you and Naruto disagreed over Taka. To be honest I think he's stupid and a little jealous," Sakura tried to be diplomatic, but couldn't stop heatedly grinding the words out. "He's going to get over it eventually. Can't you guys make up at the wedding? Sasuke-kun, please come. This is exhausting."

Sasuke got up slowly, rising to his full height. Rigid and cold, his palms spread on the table, his shoulders braced. "Sakura."

Her mouth went dry, a part of her almost wilted, but she kept on. Fooldhardy, stubborn, she just couldn't stand it anymore. "Sasuke-kun –"

He grabbed his plate and dumped it in the sink, then he was marching out. Sakura shot after him, calling his name, by the time she caught up he was already yanking on his shoes. She stood dumbly behind him, feeling out of her depth. "Where're you going?"

"Out."

Well, no _shit_. Sakura folded her arms, torn between begging him back in and running after him, in both situations her pride would suffer. She shifted, her blood boiling with nervous, furious energy as Sasuke fastened his shoes properly and stood. She had to grind every sinew in her body to stop it from lunging after him. When he slammed the door behind him she felt her heart seize, like it always would if Sasuke left, too trained on fear and injured on childish hope to expect that he'd ever come back. With Sasuke, you never knew.

She wasn't Naruto, she couldn't talk him down. She couldn't beat him with brute force. She just didn't have the goddamn nerve. With all her tough talk, cornering Sasuke was hard and she was never able to know what to do with him when he acted out. She didn't know how to handle Sasuke, all either of them had ever known from her were tears and emotional manipulation.

Sakura pressed her temples against the door, hoping to bring her temperature down. Her hands were shaking, Sasuke had scared her. In his presence she was reminded about how little she could do to twist him towards anything. All she could do, she sighed, was wait.

By the time he came back it was well into the night and she was sat on the porch in the feudal-styled courtyard. Knees drawn to her chest, listening hollowly to the dip and the slow ebb of water weighing down bamboo, the click of the shido-odoshi as it plunged. Snow melted in the sakura trees and Sasuke sat soundlessly next to her.

He didn't say anything for a while, he was listening too. He smelt a little like smoke, she realized he's probably gone off to set things on fire, she felt a little guilty for making him angry. Mostly she was just…she was just_ tired_.

She tipped the sake she'd filched and he surprised her when he accepted it. She'd filched it shamelessly from the old ice-storage in his family's kitchen, it tasted foul, closer to vinegar than anything. It was probably near the end of its shelf-life, spoiled. Sasuke and Naruto had probably bought it when they were last here. Sasuke took a swig too and she was disappointed that she didn't erupt into girlish rapture at the indirect kiss. He made a face when the sour zing hit his tongue.

She leaned towards him, settling her weight into his arm and the side of her head into the hard, pointy part of his shoulder. "I wouldn't have minded losing him to you."

It took her a while to realize that the shaky, breathless sound Sasuke had made was a derisive chuckle, self-aware, self-depreciating mirth. Mostly because she'd never heard Sasuke laugh. Okay, she'd only ever heard Sasuke laughing hysterical, evil-villain laughter, but. "Liar."

She smiled small and useless, like all her teeth were breaking in her mouth. She moved her cheek, settling better into his shoulder. "Yeah, okay. I'd have minded a little bit. But," She didn't feel stupid the way she'd felt in Konoha, here with Sasuke she didn't feel so ashamed with the tinny way her voice went. All small and cracked, and hurt. "I'd have seen it coming. I'd have _understood_. You two kind of clicked with each other in a way that I really couldn't."

Sasuke was warm, he didn't say anything. He let her burrow into him with no complaint.

She dug her fingers into the fabric of his sleeve, fiddling with the part that would have contained his arm if he hadn't gotten it blown off. Sasuke hadn't allowed a new limb. The moon was back, uninhibited by a leafy ceiling, it hung in a backdrop of deep, dark blue – beautiful and far away.

"I don't approve." Sasuke admitted, his jaw clenching, "Naruto's an idiot. You're an idiot. Fucking Hyuuga, what do they know about him?" He crushed a hiss between his teeth, like he didn't want to say more. But with all things Naruto, Sasuke just couldn't help himself. "Well, it's fanciful stupidity to have thought we could go back. I'm to blame for that, I suppose."

She squealed when he pressed the freezing edge of the sake bottle against her cheek. She swiped at it and dug a finger into his side. Sasuke made a hard, annoyed noise and Sakura burrowed deeper into his arm, or whatever was left of it, the bastard.

She swallowed down gulp of vinegary alcohol and almost gagged. "You're not sorry, though. That's what you guys fought about. I mean," she paused, looking for the correct, diplomatic route again. "Naruto's always thought of you as…well, as _ours_. I have too, no – just listen here. When we first found out you'd gotten a new team he got all red faced and we both thought _well_, what the fuck is wrong with Sasuke, if he needed someone to help him, _we_ could've. Weren't we enough?" She spilled more of the wretched alcohol down her throat, squeezed his arm to let him know she was getting to the point, not like, judging him or anything. "But in all honesty that was bullshit. We didn't help you at all. We were really hurt, but I think what hurt worst was realizing that we were just a bunch of fucking liars. We didn't help you. Well, ou didn't let us, but we could have…well, we should have done _something_. We could have helped you with your revenge all those years ago. Taka helped you. Taka was a better team to you than we were." She pulled a loose string at the cuff of his empty sleeve, dragging it. "Naruto's all for making friends and shit, but Taka's a sore point for him. He'll take a while to come around."

"…He tell you all this?"

She poorly smothered a bark of ridiculous laughter with the back of her hand. "Nah. Naruto and I don't really talk much anymore. I mean, we haven't _argued_, but…" She grinned stupidly, hiding the side of her face in the bunch of his arm, she felt her mouth crack behind her knuckles, watery, too-full of tears to help anything other than laughter. "He's been distant. He's making his own life, you know? I don't want to get in the way."

"Sakura…"

"I wish," She smothered her hand across her face, her cold cheeks slid under the hot knife of sudden tears. "I wish I was in love with you the way I was when I was twelve, Sasuke-kun."

She felt her ribs crack around hot, blooming grief. The back of her throat closing up around a heartful of coals, felt his sleeve become wet with tears and snot, and useless, useless weeping. Sasuke got up immediately, she thought to leave, until she felt him settle on her left side so he could put his good arm around her all awkward and slow and nice and so _unlike_ him, and something inside her just- just _broke_, like a small animal's spine, like a child's hope, and she wept in earnest, into the side of a boy she didn't deserve for opportunities she'd squandered, about all the stupid mistakes she'd made.

She cried until her throat went raw, until her head built with pressure, until she felt like her brain, her heart might burst. She cried until her eyes ached, until she was exhausted. She cried for hours probably. When she finally stopped, hiccuping like a baby, her skin felt hot and achy. Feverish. She felt the chill sake bottle press into her neck, it was Sasuke, glaring daggers into the sakura trees. Furious for her.

"I'm sorry," She pressed the chill porcelain over her cheek. Her other hand rubbed the sodden sleeve between her fingers before straightening and clumsily pushing her hair away from her face. "I'm okay. I'm sorry, Sasuke-kun."

Sasuke looked at her with childlike horror, it was the most open she'd ever seen him. His mouth softened. "It's my fault."

"I don't want you to be sorry for doing your duty. I think that's what drove you away on our part."

"I'm not sorry for doing my duty," He said softly, "You understand why I can't really ever go back to Konoha, right?"

"You're looking for your team."

"With or without them, I can't go back to that place without feeling like a hypocrite. I can't apologize for retaliating the way that I did, I won't."

"A visit wouldn't hu –" She shut her mouth, "Sorry. You're right."

"Even if Naruto became Hokage, it still doesn't change anything. That shinobi village was built on the blood of my ancestors, and no one's condemned it. Don't give me that political bullshit, that it's too tricky to come out to the public with it, you're too smart to be making those sorts of excuses."

"I wouldn't know," Sakura admitted, "I haven't been in governance for the past year. Tsunade's stepped down and Kakashi wouldn't take me on because he's a sexist old bat."

He looked like he'd had the ability to teleport over long distances he'd have sprang out of sight and come back with Naruto's broken molars embedded in his fist. "_What_."

"Yeah," Sakura shrugged, sniffling and dabbing at her eyes with her fingers. "Well, shit. I don't wanna go either." She groused, sulky. "Damnit Sasuke, why'd you think I came all the way out here. Can I just pretend I was tracking you across the ocean and say that's why I missed the shindig? I can say we got caught up in romantic shit and stuff."

He curved a glare at her, long-suffering.

"_What_, everyone already thinks I've been pining."

"I'm looking for my team."

"I can help you."

"Sakura – "

"Jeez, Sasuke. Just admit a part of you really missed me." Sakura snapped, sarcastic but also not. She grinned, challenging. "Attempts on my life aside – "

"Pot," Sasuke pronounced dryly. "Kettle."

She laughed. "Well, we've already established that I'm too in love with you to make the final cut."

"Really?" He said in a heroic attempt not to sound even a little curious. "Still?"

"Well, I think I'll always be a _little_ in love with you, Sasuke-kun," She tucked her knees to her chest again, smiling happily. "But I mostly chalk that up to habit, well you shouldn't worry. I should probably shake it off in a few years – " The breath died in her throat, Sasuke had gone really quiet, like a weird kind of quiet. "Well, anyway," She said in a shrill whisper, and canted a look at him bravely. She could shove the awkwardness off with enough effort really, just grin a lot, just keep –

Sasuke kisses her and Sakura nearly _dies_.

She's stupefied with shock, stupefied with how soft his mouth is, he doesn't close his eyes. She stares horrified into them, the seam of her mouth opens in an indignant gasp, and she claws her fingers into the side of his face, spluttering. You don't just fucking kiss someone with your eyes open! What the fuck kind of shit is that?!

Sasuke licks his lips like he doesn't understand what the fuss about kissing is.

"Don't you dare pity me," She swears, feeling her ribs clench, fury crack in the pit of her heart. "Don't you _dare_ – "

"Stop over thinking it." Sasuke orders harshly, but his eyes soften. Her heart lunges, like it's about to rattle against her teeth, Sakura's not exactly very kissable right now. She's spent the whole night sobbing snot into his sleeve and crying about Naruto. So excuse you if she doesn't _get_ it. "I just wanted to see."

"Am I like your hetero experiment or something?" She yells, deeply outraged. But the pressure on her ribs kind of lets up a little, "What the fuck, Sasuke-kun."

His face has pink ridges were she's got her nails in deep. He speaks with jaw clenched around her mannish hold. "I wanted to kiss you. It'd have been better if Naruto were here."

"Ew," She says, she should probably make a show of wiping her mouth or something right about now. "So I can third wheel in the threesome? No thanks."

"Sakura," he says seriously, "I care about you."

"Really?" She almost aw's, her heart melts like butter. "Like that?"

"I don't love-_love_ you," he goes on in that grave voice, but she can see his face flushing with reluctant embarrassment. "But I," he licks his lips again, she's involuntarily drawn to the sight. She should probably slap him. Probably. "But I want – "

"To fuck?"

He nods, and she's stupidly letting herself fall back on the porch. Sasuke caging her, and she's too preoccupied with how he's able to keep himself up with one arm to stop him from leaning down again. "Wait," she snaps, "This is all wrong," she grabs him by the front of his ridiculous shirt, Sasuke's face verges on crest-fallen, that's like, how it _drops_. Sakura rolls her eyes and flips them over, crawling ontop of him. He's like one armed, he can't keep himself up and grope her at the same time, she's doing him a favor, really. She straddles him, gets comfortable on his stomach and peers down at him. "Did you and Naruto do this?"

"No."

Huh? Like, two whole years? And _no_ homosexual tanglings? Sakura has never been so surprised, Naruto can't be that staunchly straight. No way. Even she'd be a little gay in his position, it's Sasuke. Also, like weren't they virtually married by the Sage or something? She crows smugly. "Ooooh, am I your _first_, Sasuke-kun?"

He flushes an angry red, scoffs. "No."

"Huh?" She pauses, "Really? Spiiiill!"

He keeps his mouth stubbornly shut.

"Hey," she shakes him by his shirt, thighs clenching around his ribs with a threatening, anaconda squeeze. "Oh, come on, you have _got_ to tell me. I need to know whose sloppy seconds I'm dealing with."

Sasuke throws his arm over his eyes, "You're so annoying."

"One," Sakura points a finger in the air, "Using contraceptives, so don't think this is some sneaky way to jump-start your clan, mister. Two, don't come thirsting after me after this, that kind of desperation just does unflattering things to a boy's face. This is like a one time – _Oomph!_"

* * *

By the time she gets back the wedding is over. Sakura can tick losing her virginity off her list and basically pat herself on the back for thoroughly fucking Uchiha Sasuke and getting away from it ; One, Alive and Two, with her soul and heart and _sanity_ intact. If anything that isht is forever out of her system and she's looking forward to going into the Hokage office, getting a century-long mission assignment in Suna or something and hastily offering her formal congratulations to the newlyweds.

She's also got bragging rights over every kunoichi fangirl in Konoha, which is pretty dope, but these are rights she is too mature to utilize. She keeps her mouth shut, but Ino looks disapprovingly at her over the counter. "What," Sakura says defensively, already happily moving between the aisles. She's okay. Naruto's found happiness, she's happy for him. She's making her way down her bucket-list, thrown off the mystery that was Uchiha Sasuke, and didn't catch feelings in the process. You know what, there's probably a sweet job opportunity in the horizon. Life is going to be _good_. "How's Yoshiro?"

"Small penis," Ino says, not letting up on the serious judgy-glare even as she says this, "Sai, on the other hand – "

Sakura begins choking on air.

Ino's already launching over the counter and slapping her on the back, Sakura waves her off but just - keeps - _pounding._

"Ino, stop, what the fuck – I stopped dying like two minutes ago – NOW YOU'RE JUST HITTING ME!"

Her best-friend (seriously where does she pick these people _up?_) backs off all slow, with no repentance whatsoever. Sakura could probably launch into the tricky topic of consent issues, given that Sai was emotionally inept one could argue that he'd be unable to make such decisions, but she could also bring up how sleeping with an effeminate asshole in a croptop probably said a lot about Ino's latent lesbianism, but you know. Glass houses and all. Also, Sakura was in no mood to have her line of questioning turn into a mind-fuck at the hands of the most adept, up-and-coming torturer in Konoha, and probably the _world._

So pardon her, but she wasn't into having her whole life examined right now.

"Well, you must have it _aaaall_ figured out."

"Yep, things are looking up, Ino." She grinned optimistically, plucking up a daffodil, which was quickly plucked _out_ of her hand and put back into the water. "Hey, I'm thinking..._Iwa_."

"Yeah right," Ino scoffed, "Like Naruto's going to let you just up and leave,"

"Last time I checked _Kakashi_ was Hokage. I remember because I was really dubious, loudly dubious about the appointment. I mean, Kakashi, seriously. It's still bogus - "

"Sakura!" Her best friend followed her, clawing at the air. "You can't just run away from your problems!"

"I'm not _running_ away from my problems," she scrunched up her face like Ino was being ridiculously, deliberately obtuse. "I'm expanding my _horizons_." She swept her arm towards the glass front where the horizon was, probably, like, behind all those buildings. She dragged Ino towards her, arm around the blonde's shoulder, Sakura glowered down at her, smiling sweetly but threateningly. "_Be happy for me_."

"You're insane. You're on a sex-high."

"What," Sakura said, "It was one time, and like, two months ago - Hey!" She spun away from her friend as if burnt, she'd been _tricked!_ "I shouldn't have expected any less from you, Yamanaka Ino."

"You're disgusting." Ino said, but she trembled a little in awe, and Sakura could totally tell that she was impressed.

"Thanks," She tossed over her shoulder, pulling her shades over her eyes as she made a smooth exit. "Also, suck it, bitch."

Because the only thing spectacularly great about fucking Sasuke was getting to lord it over Ino. Sasuke's hotness had made their friendship collateral at some point, or was it their friendship that made Sasuke collateral? Hm, well, never mind. She'd gotten laid, she was getting out, she was going to start a new life for herself.

* * *

Sakura was totally running away from her problems. What, it worked for Jiraiya, right? Jeez, she hadn't even gone to see Naruto. Which, about turn really, she shouldn't _have_ to feel guilty about it.

The only good thing about coming back to Konoha was that the snow had melted. Ever since two years ago winter had been coming at the end of the year, with actual _snow_. Sakura saw spring set in, felt the warmth on the back of her neck, could wear her cute miniskirt _without_ worrying about frostbite- _finally_. She walked down the path where Sasuke once had the audacity to knock her out and leave her on a goddamn bench where any sexual predator could have just, _waltzed_ by - but the sakura trees were in full bloom which always got her heart a little full and her bitterness abated. These were the trees she'd been named for, this was her goddamn_ season._

"Hey, Hag."

Sai settled in by her side, Sakura summoned up a happy smile - because you know - she should have stuff to smile about. Fake it till you make it and all. "Yo." She said, channeling Kakashi because she was too stupid to be natural. Naruto had one thing right, she was a _terrible_ liar. "Uh, well, what've you been up to?"

"You missed the wedding." Sai managed to walk and paint in his scroll at the same time, Sakura frowned skeptically at a curving black slant of ink that she was pretty sure was side-boob. "How was Sasuke-kun?"

Sakura stretched, pinned her arms behind her head and yawned. "He didn't wanna come. I chased him over three continents and then some. Well, I could explain the trip to you, but some parts, well. You'd have to have been there."

"Are you feeling alright?"

"Yep. Actually, this trip made me realize just how much I loved travelling."

It was true. Camping with Sasuke had been kind of fun, and not because of sex, they'd done that once and came to the decision that that was as many times as could be allowed. Sasuke and her actually tolerated each other, they hadn't exactly exchanged friendship bracelets but she was glad their mutual unrequited love for Naruto had kind of sort of brought them back together. Weird.

"Hm." Sai said, and she couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic or he was just making polite affirmative I'm-totally-listening-but-not-really-invested noises. "You brought your paperwork to Kakashi?"

"Permission pending."

"Hm, does Dickless know?"

Jeez. Sakura was getting really annoyed with this schtick. Naruto this, Naruto that. She was a grown _woman_. "It doesn't really make sense for me to continue at the hospital when Tsunade's back in play there. Her and Shizune can hold it down for a while."

"Still - "

"Nope. I haven't seen Naruto, I've been busy."

"Hm."

What the fuck was _that_ supposed to mean? Sakura was getting real tired of Sai's pointed hm-ing. She scowled at what she was pretty sure was more detail on Ino's naked body than she _ever_ wanted to know of. Also, it was hard to hide her resentment around Sai when he'd pretty much done nothing but complicate her love life to the point where it never got the chance to take off. She glared at him all the way towards the Hokage's office, her whole body radiating don't-you-have-somewhere-else-to-I-don't-know-_be_ , but nope. He just, stuck by her side. All the way there.

In retrospect she'd probably have been more grateful because that was when she was confronted with Naruto and Hinata walking down the street. Now, Sakura had had a year to aquaint herself with the sight of the-one-that-got-away and his sweet-soon-to-be-waifu being ridiculously PDA so she could keep a straight face, and had perfected the light, brainlessly pleasant smile of someone who was happy for them, but she found herself scrabbling for Sai's elbow.

Sai looked mildly concerned as Sakura nearly pitched forward in a dead faint, Naruto and Hinata were still at the dango vendors, he was laughing loudly, golden and she was blushing and stuttering. They hadn't seen her yet. "Sakura," he patted her cheek to bring her out of her horrified stupour, "Keep it together. You're going to have to confront them at some point."

"I - " Sakura gasped, feeling queer. Trying to accept the reality that was Hinata, looking about three months _pregnant_. She felt everything plummet out of her, all that stupid bravado, all that grand optimism, fled. "I...I can't. Sai, I don't know how -" She choked up, "I need to go."

"I'm here with you."

Well fuck, no shit, what a goddamn comfort! She was pretty sure moral integrity said she shouldn't blame everything terrible that had ever happened to her on Sai, but that voice in her head could get _bent_. She looked up at him, ashen. "Sai, this is _balls_."

"Hey! Sakura-chan! You're back"

Sakura prayed for death, she prayed for it to come down, like, right fucking _now_.

"Just follow my lead," Sai said seriously, abominably, freakishly tall. "I do this as a friend but also partially out of guilt, and partially because I've always been somewhat sexually attracted to you."

"I _knew_ it," Sakura hissed, and was pulled into an improptu make-out session by an effeminate asshole in a croptop.

Sai physically disgusted her because sexualizing him felt wrong and inhumane, but he had like a really, _really_ soft mouth? - god damn, just like Sasuke, they both also did that too-much-tongue thing. Which was probably more than necessary, and she hoped to pin this on Sai trying to make a show out of it rather than having sloppy technique because she believed Ino deserved better than that.

She swooned pathetically, mostly because she thought if he dipped her deep enough she'd be removed from Naruto's sight and like, plunge out of existence, or at the very least be hidden enough so her terrible acting didn't compromise the performance. She pulled on Sai's stupid hair, hoping to rip some of it out of his scalp in the process. She cursed when he bit her tongue. Fuck, she pinched his butt hard and Sai flinched in pain. They pawed at each other like animals - to anyone else this looked like passionate, wild embrace between two horny lovers. Sakura kept trying to get away with the opportunity to knee him in the crotch and Sai, like, stepped on her toe like, three fucking times, the _asshole_.

When they broke apart, Sakura's face was red and Sai looked like he'd been shoved out of a sexy hurricane. Not bad, Haruno Sakura.

She adjusted her shirt and Sai made an unnecessary show of adjusting his crop top, she glared at him murderously from the corner of her eyes. She swiped saliva off her chin. When she looked up at Naruto he was the sort of red not yet seen in nature. Hinata was practically a pitiful sheet white compared to that colour.

The Hyuuga fiddled with her fingers, averting her eyes, and Naruto's chest seemed to expand as he prepared for the loudest yell in the world - the sort of yell that might reach across the continent and shake Sasuke out of whatever tree he was sleeping in. Sakura saw Hinata's soft hand pull around his wrist and his chest collapsed, the fury bled away from him, and Sakura was kind of resentful because fuck this _shit_, seriously - and Naruto used only his Stage five Outdoor Voice which boomed into Ichiraku instead of all the way to the Hokage monument.

"WHAT THE HELL, SAI?"

"Um," Sakura said, taking this distraction to give Hinata her unnatural congratulations. The awkwardness of the delivery could always be blamed on the awkward situation they'd just witnessed. Sakura never actually thought she'd be thankful for having Sai by her side in a _social_ situation. "Congratulations on your wedding! And," she elbowed Sai cheekily, smile cracking the corners of her mouth weirdly, "Your impending children!"

"Th-Thank you, Sakura-san!"

Sakura beamed, wow. That wasn't so terrible! Naruto was still shaking Sai by the shoulders like a father who'd found a man defiling his daughter, Sai bore it with his straight-faced, infuriating lack of understanding for what he presumed was an overreaction. "DIDN'T I SEE YOU WITH INO THE OTHER NIGHT?"

"You did," Sai agreed, "Now you've seen me with the Hag."

Naruto spluttered, veins pulling in his throat. "Sakura-chan," he turned pleadingly towards her and Sakura reminded herself that she probably no longer had the rights to walloping him. Yet another thing that had been taken away from her. "How could you - Sasuke - "

"Seriously," she folded her arms, hiding her thunderous fury and assuming the devil-may-care shrug of an independent-sexually-active woman. Sai didn't need to be told to put his arm arrogantly around her, she shifted into it with the sulkiness of a defiant teenager. "Stop acting like my mother. Don't think I don't know the whole thing was an elaborate match-making scheme."

"Just because you've settled doesn't mean you should stifle the activity of others around you," Sai chastened, putting on the best-disappointed-dad face in the whole _world_. Sakura almost cried tears of hysterical gratefulness. "Anyway, the Hag and I are on our way to having unprotected sex."

"Yep." Sakura agreed, that was pushing it too far. But, you know, okay. "Sorry I missed your wedding. Sasuke-kun gave me a really hard time."

"That bastard." Naruto clenched his fists, "How far'd you chase him?"

"Well," Sakura cleared her throat and shrugged like it was all inconsequential, water under the bridge. Some people were just too cool to always be explaining themselves. "Across the continent, it was wild. I'd explain it to you but, well, you'd have to have been there."

"She told me that too," Sai informed them, her story checked out. "Well. See you two."

Naruto spluttered, remembering him and on the verge of triggering yet another irrational aneurysm. Hinata, tactful for being a stuttering mess of a female (what, she was _allowed_ to be salty) led him away with a quiet smile, Sakura watched him complain loudly, his head disappearing down the street whose inhabitants they'd thoroughly scandalized. His yells of rage were barely out of ear shot and Sakura was pretty sure she'd be known as the village slut by sundown but she turned to Sai. Dishevelled Sai who'd sort of helped her through what could have been the most excruciatingly, damning encounter of her life. Who'd kind of...helped her.

"Hey, Sai?"

He looked down at her, surprised. Sakura looked ahead, scowling so he wouldn't get any ideas about the mush her heart currently was. She felt happy, touched tears swarming at the back of her throat. "Thanks."

He frowned. "You look mad."

"I'm furious," She snapped, but kind of clamped a hand over her face for like five whole minuted before she could look up at him without tears in her eyes. "You're an idiot."

* * *

"So," Naruto says and she near leaps out of her skin, goddamn Hiarashin-no-jutsu. The swing next to her is suddenly occupied and she glares balefully at him, "Heard you wanted to leave."

Sakura makes a show of looking around, surreptitiously checking if she's the only one in the playground at midnight, because no way did Naruto actively seek _her_ out. "Weird, wait. There's no one else here. So that must mean that...You're talking to _me?"_

Naruto has the decency to look embarrassed, swinging back with a fitful kick of his feet. "Yeah, I deserve that."

"No excuses about being busy?" Sakura prompts sarcastically, "I don't know, being Hokage, family? Are you getting a fever?" When she reached out towards him to give his temples a patronizing temperature-check he flinches away from her. Sakura drops her hand, turns away from him and glares ahead getting ready to storm off, or start swinging high into the air, and swing away from this boring-circular conversation they keep havin every time they meet once in a millenium when the starts align and Naruto deigns to honor her with his presence. Fuck this guy. Last week he'd held her _hand_. "I don't know what could possibly compel you to come see lil' ol' me."

"Sakura - "

"Firstly, even if Sarada and I were leaving, it's none of your business - this'd be a decision that Sasuke and I, as her parents, have come upon. You might be fucking Hokage but last I checked you weren't her father."

She realizes what she's said only a brief second after it comes pouring vehemently out of her mouth. Sakura stills, shocked at her own audacity. Naruto's gone still too. Like she's hit a nerve, like he might leave. Well, if he leaves, it's nothing new, is it? It's just Naruto being Naruto -

"I'm her Uncle."

Sakura whips in her seat, chains twisting violently as she faces him. Sakura blinks, bewildered at him, like Naruto's said the darndest shit before, but this takes the fucking _cake_. "Excuse _you?_ What. Can you hear yourself right now?"

Naruto's features shadow with apocalyptic fury, it makes her heart bump up. Because Naruto's statements are not harmless, he doesn't say he's her Uncle to remind her of the situational blood ties, he's saying he's her Uncle like he has a right to Sarada's future. Like he has a _say_. She rises, her whole body shaking with the sort of raw fury she hasn't felt since _Sasori_. If Naruto's her Uncle, her _blood_-linked-Uncle, then who the fuck is _she?_

Naruto doesn't make excuses, doesn't explain it away. Doesn't say the same old, _I can protect her here._ The typical, it's dangerous for her, with her links to me and Sasuke - our enemies - _bullshit_. Naruto doesn't even_ explain_ himself. He has the nerve to come to her on his fucking highhorse and claim more right to her own daughter?

"I don't care if I didn't push her out of the womb," She says, her voice deathly in its levelness. "I'd bleed for that girl a thousand times over. She's my daughter. No ifs or buts about it, Hokage-sama."

Naruto stands up slowly, the swing rattling behind him. It's the setting of a storm waiting to start, the swingset stirring in the choked wind of a summer breeze, the cicadas holding their breath. Sakura knows her own strength, they face off. She'd never thought that one day she'd look at Naruto with so much betrayal and rage in her chest, to wonder just who the fuck gave him the _right_. He's bizarrely tall. She remembers the days when his hands were the same size as hers, those long-past years where he'd been just a few inches shorter, now she has to crane her neck back to keep level with him, has to look up to go toe-to-toe. He is a towering bastion, just like the ideal Hokage would be. She's small and pink, with ridiculous hair, but she's got enough wrath to blow him over a thousand times.

She wonders if it's going to come to a fight with Naruto. It's not like fights with Sasuke, Naruto and Sasuke fought each other the endless way a snake devoured its tail, nothing could stop that cycle, that was what their friendship was _built_ on. With Naruto a fight is something their relationship, already as pitiful as it was, could simply not recover from. Mostly because a part of her doubted he'd take her seriously which would injure her pride, and a part of her thought he might, which would speak volumes about just how far they'd fallen.

Mostly, she's angry because it's not her _fault_. She tried, she tried and she tried, she did _everything_. She made nice with his wife, she encouraged his children, she tried to be by his side as a friend, to help him _politically_ \- but it was like as soon as the war ended he'd cut her off like she was some reprehensible tissue growth that he'd never had use for. She'd _tried_ to be Kakashi's advisor, had been turned away despite her _years_ of experience - she'd tried to help Naruto in _some_ capacity but Shikamaru had had that covered. She goddamned took Hinata shopping for clothes and ended up somehow encouraging her to pursue him _romantically?_ Sakura had done everything a friend was supposed to do, she'd done everything and _then_ some, and Naruto had the audacity to treat her like she was just an extension of Sasuke, shoving her off towards him, like she was just a place-holder, like she couldn't wither and wilt without his friendship. They were supposed to be there for each other.

"I'll talk with Sasuke," He says, like it's still up for negotiation. Talks of course in which her input is irrelevant and not required.

She sneers. "_I'll_ talk with Sasuke. What do you know about him anyway? He can't stand this place."

That digs, that reaches him. Naruto's eyes darken, his tone hard, the sort that doesn't brook any argument. "The solution isn't building his own hidden village."

"Can you_ hear_ yourself?" She throws out her arms, yell bursting in the empty playground. In this stupid, sleeping village. "Can you hear yourself talking? Who _are_ you? Do you have any idea what it's like for him to live in the shadow of this place? He's tried, Naruto - he has _tried_. This place is an open wound - "

"What's in the past is in the past -"

"Yeah, let's _not_ acknowledge the institutional corruption and bullshit that tore apart his clan. That shit happened _ages_ ago."

"Sakura, you're being hysterical."

She punches him in the face, not even bothering with chakra to harden the blow, to keep that barrier between her knuckles and his fucking face. Naruto takes it, turning his cheek in an attempt to cancel out half the impact - Sakura doesn't drop her fist, chest rising and falling with manical anger, Naruto's head is turned, his stillness would frighten anyone else. She hisses, _murderous_. "Don't you ever - _ever_ try to paint me like some crazy bitch, don't ever try to drown me out as irrational or unreasonable. Don't you goddamn _dare_."

He opens his jaw, testing out the ache. He pulls his head back up and looks down on her patiently. "Alright," he says, all reasonable and patronzing in his coolness. "Let's say Sasuke does create a hidden village - "

"You don't even _know_ that."

"He's a doujutsu user, every clan needs a base." He says like she's not already thought of this. Sakura was _breathing_ politics long before Naruto even got back to Konoha, who the fuck does he think she is? She's still gasping for breath, and they stand in the empty playground, like they're still _discussing_ this shit. "Sound is open to him. It's politically unstable, they're looking for a leader. Even if I gave Sasuke my blessings, the elders wouldn't allow it, they don't trust him - "

She looks at him with indignation, she can't help the step closer she takes, pleading. "But _you_ trust him."

"That's beside the point." Naruto tells her, softly, but not kind. Firm. "Sasuke can't become Otokage. Konoha will never recognize it as a Hidden Village."

"I can't even believe we're discussing this," Sakura says, thrown. "Naruto, you're the Hokage, with enough effort you can - " She stops, she looks into his eyes with horror mounting in her chest, his clairvoyant blue eyes. Of course, she's been so _stupid_. "This wouldn't have anything to do with the Hyuuga, would it?"

He doesn't move to deny it. Sakura cannot _believe_ \- of course, five years into term and Naruto hadn't overturned the Bird Cage Seal like she'd expected. He'd come about and reasoned that every clan had a right to protect its secrets, as long as no one was being hurt. She'd been astounded but she hadn't had the authority to argue with him, to even be listened to.

Hiashi had made no secret of his mistrust towards the Uchiha clan, as a rival doujutsu clan it was hardly expected that he'd be an encouraging force in Sasuke's ambitions to rebuild his clan.

She looks at Naruto like she's seeing him for the first time. Even as he'd changed over the years, everything he did, everything she _saw_ of him was crowded by the twelve year old boy she remembered, that laughing, grinning face - she'd seen a shadow of him in this jaded, political man. She'd thought she had. She'd thought she still _could_, that she might endure and forgive him and believe that even when so much of him had changed one thing would always be certain. That Naruto cared, that he'd do the right thing.

The thing was that she was right, Naruto _did_ care, Naruto thought he was doing the right thing - had made prudent, political concessions for higher gains. Already the village was becoming a skyline of towering buildings, a wood in the shadow of some steel contraption, an urban setting out of some bizarre movie. They weren't a Village Hidden in the Leaves, they were an empire, crawling on its belly, devouring.

Sakura felt robbed. She felt like God had taken one look at her life and decided to twist its head off and put it on back wrong. Sasuke had become a decent human-being who'd felt the strains of being a long-distance father, who'd become her partner, who didn't have to love her to respect her - Sasuke was trying to pull his daughter out of this growling trap, and Naruto had become distant, cold, could no longer be understood or explained. Naruto had become _Hokage_.

She'd watched him make his own life, cut her out with criminal casualness. Avoid her, dismiss her. A thousand years ago he'd made her feel like she could accomplish anything, it was why she'd loved him. She'd wanted to be happy for him, it was why she'd kept quiet. She'd been fucked every which way by that decision.

"I thought I loved you," she burst out, laughing with rage trapped in her throat. "Eight years ago, I _loved_ you. I'm really glad you were too much of a coward to say anything. I'm really glad I didn't say anything either. All you ever treated me like was a piece of meat, a pawn. Pushing me away, pushing me toward's Sasuke, trying to control all of us - and I _let_ you."

Naruto straightened his spine, as if recovering from a blow.

Sakura shook her head in disbelief, her hair choppy around her ears. "I might not have had the authority to say anything to you about your piss-poor domestic policy, Naruto - but Sarada is a person you don't have _shit_ to do with." She dropped her arms, her shoulders squared. "Whatever scruples you and Sasuke are going through in the end it's my decision and his, whether it's to create a hidden village or sail all the way to Rain. It has nothing to do with you. That's the last I hear of this." She balled up her fist and moved past him, when he grabbed her arm she forced every bone in her body not to cave his skull into his stomach. She stared straight ahead, a fire in her belly, a fire that had hardened like a diamond, sharp and unbreakable.

"Last time you tried to leave," Naruto said quietly, softly, gently. "You were on your way to Suna and he dumped a pregnant woman in your lap, she died and you got to take care of his kid. He didn't even marry you. I was angry for you. I wanted to beat the living shit out of him. You were so - "

She whipped a flinty glare at him. "Don't talk to me like you know shit about what I've been though. You don't have the right to be angry on my behalf."

"But I was."

"You're a hundred years too late," Sakura bore her teeth, "Also, you're being so heavy-handed on the emotional manipulation that I'm embarrassed. I'm _embarrassed_ for you, Naruto. Don't pretend that any of our feelings suddenly matter to you. Now I know. Now I see everything. Saving Sasuke wasn't about saving Sasuke, it was about beating him. After you won you didn't even try to help him, he was banished from here, the crimes he'd been avenging treated like they were inconsequential. You disenfranchised him of his right to feel angry, you forgave him - Sasuke didn't _want_ your forgiveness, he wanted you to help him undo a wrong. Do you know what they said about you? That everything he had you _coveted_, his popularity, his fighting skills, even me. You're a shit dad and a shame to the boy I once knew. You're not a friend, Naruto - you're not even a teammate."

"You're speaking out of anger."

"Oh, I mean every word." Sakura jerked her arm out of his hold. Naruto was red in the face, like he's been kicked unexpectedly in the throat. "Good night, Hokage-sama."

When she drifted away from him she felt her heart move like it was made out of molten fire, all sick and furious behind her ribs, dripping each part of her in golden wrath. She went home to her sleeping daughter, she tucked the blankets securely around her and knew that there were some things she just wouldn't compromise on. If Naruto was foolish enough to obstruct them, then she wouldn't let a confrontation end in words and walk away to distance herself from any it ever came down to it, she could fight Naruto.

She would fight and she wouldn't lose.


	2. Chapter 2

**entitled:** twist, snap.  
**fandom:** naruto, narusaku, narusasu, sasukarin, basically an inadequate love song for those who suffered (no love for NH or SS here, but this story wasn't created to bash anyone. any resentment poised towards these two completely bullshit unions come from characters themselves.)  
**setting:** this story is anti-ending while still working with the bs the ending gave us. eventual narusaku (no rainbows btw), occupational sasusaku (that turns into eventual platonic partnership), a bit of casual multi-shipping. accidental, unwarranted (come on, maybe a little warranted) OT3ing. initially writing this it started off as really angsty and serious, becamse ridiculous and hysterically _stupid_, then became angsty and serious again. sorry for the whip lash.  
**warnings: **the demon children exist**.** heck, cannon is cannon, it's hell out here. sex, language, violence, adultery. basically keep off if you want your sanity intact and if you don't want to lose all respect for me _and_ your faves. will probs annoy a lot of people regardless of their pairing. everyone is OC because guess what, OC is the new IC. don't look at me, kishi's orders. also come at me with all your butthurt YOU-SALTY-COZ-YOUR-PAIRING-DIDN'T-BECOME-CANNON shit because it's really original, thank you.  
**disclaimer:** i own nothing that isn't already mine  
**notes:** when cannon imitates fanfiction, and fanfiction immitates cannon immitating fanfiction. Its fanception, except that we've _all_ been let down.  
**summary: **Sakura is a study in how to fuck up, she's allowed. She's failed so many times it's a joke, but there are some lines that you simply don't cross. "I don't care if you're the Sage of the Six Paths, I don't care if you're Hokage. You have no right."  
**note:** ENRAGED BANSHEE RAMBLING REVIEW REPLIES AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE FEEDBACK GUYS. Also, still no beta.

* * *

.

.

.

* * *

When Sakura was young she was clever, she had a mind like a battering ram, a wheel. She had knowledge and intellect, and she thought that it was enough. She looked at her hands, unblemished, white and soft as fawn skin, and was met with the horrible reality that she needed more than her brain.

In their profession cleverness could not exist on its own, could not guarantee survival without being supplemented by strength, pure, raw power. Brawn. She watched her teammates become bigger, better – watched them bleed, become strong, pull on that strength to the skin of their teeth, bite down, tear, grow further away, legs long and eating up miles and leaving her behind.

She went into the Forest of death, split the hair from her shoulders under the blunt edge of a kunai. She shed away her silliness, her weakness, her ineffectual girlishness – and she came out of the Forest less child, more teeth, more fist and war cry. A willing warrior on a path. She worked hard, she worked till the bed of her nails bled, broke every finger, split every knuckle – she learnt to crack the crust of the earth like shelling peanuts, she learnt how to make the ground quake, to crumble mountains, and she learnt how to draw up the dregs of life and coax death off like a fever. She learnt life, she learnt poison, she learnt how to kill, how to save. How to bloom.

She, the child of civilians, the seed of an unknown clan. She who had gotten by on hard work, no clan jutsu, no blood bound technique passed down. No birthright to excellence. She earned her forehead protector so it wrapped above her brow, testament and medal – the truth of where she'd been, the signal of her worth. A worth she'd forged under tutelage, under will, under self-discipline. Hard work.

She learnt how to stand next to titans and not drown in their shadow. She learnt how to keep a heart beating, how to save, how to nurture, how to protect, how to endure. She learned her own limits, and broke every one. She lied and she wept, and she felt with a humanity she could never iron out of herself.

She learnt how to endure, how to deny herself, when to take what was hers, and when to abstain. She learned what it was to be a kunoichi.

* * *

When Sasuke called her to Rice it was a summons so discrete that five seconds after it puffed into smoke between her fingers Sakura thought she'd imagined the whole thing. Sakura had a creative imagination; but not even if she'd gone swimming in Tsunade's medicine cabinet could she ever be high enough to conceive the idea of Sasuke actually contacting her.

It was too ridiculous to be a hallucination, so…it was legit. Sasuke-kun wanted to see her in Rice. Not Naruto, not Kakashi, _her_.

"The fuck," she whispered to herself with mute horror, then once again, with greater feeling.

Sai meandered into her room with the duct tape and frowned at her frowning at her hands like a crazy person. "I sensed a pulse of chakra,"

Sakura's brows furrowed, the kink between her temples deepening. If Sai sense chakra that meant that it had actually been real. "Yeah, I've been contracted outside of the village."

"Isn't that a little early?"

"It's just for a little while," Sakura shook out her wrists, wiggling her shoulders and snapping to being moderately more awake. "Um, thanks for helping me with the furniture.

"For someone who moved in here barely two years ago your furniture is...decrepit."

"It's serviceable." Sakura said distantly, so used to defending the ugly upholstery that it didn't even bother her anymore. What _was_ bothering her was what the fuck Sasuke-kun could _want_. She hadn't known what he was up to for the past five months since she'd left him. Her efforts to stick a foot into the Hokage's office were thwarted by Kakashi's condescending attempts to tell her they 'had it all handled' had come to naught, which meant she didn't have access to all the pertinent information she'd need to ascertain the last Uchiha's whereabouts…

Damn, being Tsunade's apprentice had meant a lot of perks. Well, she couldn't stand about in her apartment packing furniture, dawdling, when Sasuke's message implied urgency.

She went back to her cupboards, swinging for the backpack she kept ready for situations like these. Sai followed her calmly as she went about snatching extra kunai and her jounin jacket. Okay, she hoped the situation called for her help in a professional capacity – and not you know, because Sasuke was being _weird_.

But if she was required in a professional capacity, then…Sasuke was probably hurt. She packed an extra batch of soldier pills just in case.

She shrugged on her jacket halfway as she was coming out the door, and bumped directly into…Kakashi.

"Oh, hey," Sakura said, smothering the pang of annoyance. "Hokage-sama," she dipped into a hurried bow, shower-damp hair flopping over her temples. "I'm going out of town for a while."

She remembered their last encounter, when he'd been _completely unreasonable_ contesting why she wanted to leave in the first place. Sakura had raised her voice to her superior for the first time in her life. Kakashi had treated her outburst with the mildly disappointed air of someone who was treating with an immature child, like he'd expected her to be more professional or something when _he_ was being anything but.

"That's sudden," the Hokage said dryly.

Sakura shoved back her hair, nodding jerkily. Already calculating the distance from Konoha and the tiny civilian town on the border of Rice. "It's an emergency, the way shishou said it." She was already speaking before she even registered it as a lie. Sakura grabbed her boots. "Something you needed?"

"Can't I visit an old student?"

Sakura did him the charity of not snorting in his face. Kakashi's teaching skills had consisted of extended bouts of negligence peppered with occasional bouts of concern; as occasional as shooting stars, as rare, but still all in all, leaving her earth untouched.

Laughing at Kakashi's attempts to seem like he gave a shit would only cement herself of being the bitter bitch he already near accused her of being last they talked. Wouldn't give him more ammo to deem her some infantile brat incapable of venturing into the world by herself.

"Well, makes my job easier that you're here so I can check out," Sakura said with a dry ol' voice of her own, flashing him a hasty grin. "But I gotta cut it short. Bye, Kakashi-sensei – " And with the last tug of her left buckle, she darted up to kiss him on the cheek.

The show of affection was sweet, but demeaning. It startled Kakashi, but didn't displease him. He muttered something about being a grown man, and that she shouldn't make fun of the elderly.

Sakura leapt off her third level balcony. Before he could realize that she hadn't exactly asked permission.

Lying about Sasuke had come naturally and she was only a little skeptic about it before she decided not to fumble on it. Never mind that shinobi catching wanderlust was completely normal, and that you know, her other two teammates had gotten absolutely no crap for you know…

* * *

She was drinking. The moment Naruto came around she felt surprised, then not at all. Because of course Naruto was going to remember they were teammates the moment she didn't feel like being reminded. And also, Sakura felt all sorts of complicated around him and that complication didn't need to ferment itself into stupid or rash decisions with the help of alcohol.

So the pleasantly buzzed part of her mind felt odd yearning and vile hatred of, the former for you know, his unattainability and the latter for his cutting short her good times. It was with a long suffering sigh that Sakura quietly modulated her system to start breaking down the alcohol components in her liver. She wasn't going to embarrass herself.

Naruto settled quietly into the bar, back against the edge, smiling pleasantly at the grimy innards of the more than empty establishment. "Hey, Sakura-chan," he said, voice warm and happy and so thoughtless she wanted to punch him or _scream._

Meeting him with Hinata was vastly different from encountering him alone.

"Hey," She spoke dully to the shot glass. Damn it. She tried at a smile, worn soft with exhaustion. "Shouldn't you be home?"

She didn't have to look at him. Hopefully she wouldn't have to, but she could see the childish pout in her periphery, the sulky whine. "Hinata chased me out, said I smelt like ramen."

She snorted. She felt terrible for her disgust, for her utter reluctance to hear stories of blissful domesticity. She remembered she was leaving in a few weeks, that she could try to feel happy for him inwardly. She was. She was super fucking happy. So _happy._

"What about you?"

It took her a while to register the question, even with alcohol destroying itself, becoming harmless molecules, the haze was slow to recede from her brain. She stopped the exercise. She didn't want to _completely_ lose her buzz. Now she was only mildly tipsy. Gods knew that she couldn't handle this_ sober_. "I'm fine."

He was fishing, obviously. For an admission of her leaving, like it was some sort of confession, something to defend. Naruto wanted to know. Sakura probed her nape with her fingers, soothing out the cramped tension there. Naruto didn't exactly tell her he was getting married either, she'd heard _that_ second-hand. He didn't give her any explanation, hadn't asked her opinion, hadn't told her _anything_ at all – she should probably have been thankful for that, it might have been a confrontation that'd have brought many ugly things to light, unearthed a lot of feelings. He'd spared her in his way, without knowing it. But also slapped her in the face. Kindness had teeth too, sometimes. She didn't want any of it.

So, no, she didn't owe him an explanation. Childish or not, her resentment was utterly alive.

"I heard from Kakashi," Naruto finally said, "That you were leaving."

"Long haul diplomatic venture," she admitted, not a facial tic to give away a single inkling of guilt. She shrugged. "I see the world a bit, heal wherever I go. Give the village some good PR."

Naruto was quiet for a while.

She got a little while to sort of agonize over the little details. Her hair, sweaty from the humidity, sticking to the back of her neck. Her scuffed boots, the dust encrusted sleeve of her jounin black turtle neck. The fact that she looked like she'd gotten into a one armed brawled with a hurricane and lost, and was now licking her wounds at the ugliest bar dive in Konoha. Not a shred of make up, sweaty and dirty and bothered by the heat.

Naruto on the other hand, carried with him the smell of sandalwood. Clean and earthy. When he'd sat next to her she was just about buzzed enough for it to be _overwhelming_ distracting. Clean shaven, washed, utterly immaculate. He'd taken to wearing a white coat over his training fatigues, and she knew he was going to try for the chuunin exams later this year.

She smiled faintly at that. She'd made jounin by herself while they were both gone, that accomplishment itself seemed somewhat pale. Less meaningful. Of course she was successful, she didn't have the overwhelming odds of being raised an orphan or like the last heir of a murdered clan. Who cared?

She sighed, hating herself for the petty beast growling in her gut. She was selfish, she was mean. She was _awful._

She thought that Naruto was close enough to drunkenly reach for. She wasn't drunk enough to forget herself. Gods help her.

"Who'd you fight?" Naruto asked idly.

Sakura turned over her glass, set it down. She shrugged. She'd been sparring with just about everyone in the village; Tenten to Lee, to Sai too, and even Temari on the days the kunoichi hopped over the border.

Sakura had slowly disengaged herself from the hospital, made sure everything would be alright for leaving, organised the administration in such a way that her absence could be accommodated. She spent more time with her family. She'd been training hard to take her mind off things whenever she was out of the hospital, ironing out the faults in her taijutsu, perfecting her technique.

She hardly saw any of her peers in a casual setting, everyone was so phenomenally busy and Sakura's free time was eventually broadening to the point where she couldn't fill it with enough distraction. Tomorrow would be her last day at the hospital.

It was still lonely. She scarcely ever saw Naruto, but these days she had been trying to keep herself busy enough not to notice, and being excited for the future occasionally provided some distraction.

Now Naruto was here. Talking to her. She felt like she could have brought his behavior up a thousand times, except Sakura had been selfish for so long...it didn't feel fair to ask anything of him, to make demands.

"Who haven't I?" She said wryly.

Naruto looked at her strangely, and she realized. Him. She'd never fought him. Sakura had sparred with every shinobi she'd ever met in the village, and _teammates_ occasionally sparred.

She'd seen every team in the village go at it; it was standard training and blew off steam. She wondered if it was another one of Kakashi's failings, that if he had stopped displaying his blatant (never mind whether or not it was justified. He should have tried _harder_) favoritism he'd have stopped contributing to the overblown rivalry between Naruto and Sasuke.

That without giving either a chance to blow this steam off... it was like he'd kept egging the both of them on, intentionally or unintentionally and never given them the chance for a good fight to clear up the bad blood as a good sensei should have, in a controlled setting, in a _safe_ setting. This had led to a building, mounting situation just gearing towards a life or death altercation between the two. Kakashi had _brewed_ that shit, whether he liked to know it or not.

Kakashi had never encouraged spars between teammates, and never encouraged her, _period_. Even in the second bell test it had been Naruto and her against him. Sakura had never sparred with Naruto. She'd sparred with Sai, with Sasuke - but never. Never Naruto.

She turned her head, knuckles propping her temples. Ha. Fight Naruto. Sakura wasn't sure she could fight a clean fight with him, she had the ugliest things hid behind her ribs, and she sure as hell doubted Naruto would take her seriously at all. She felt a hard lump in her throat. Yeah right, fight _Naruto_. She wasn't going to put herself through that, Naruto didn't offer, and she didn't ask.

"You don't have to leave.

Sakura sighed, thumbing at the frown between her brows. "I don't have to." She agreed equably. "I want to."

"Why?"

"Why not?" Sakura drummed her fingers on the scarred bar top, studying the shelved brews with exhausted annoyance. She'd had this conversation a _hundred_ times with Kakashi, he'd been a serious pain in her ass. She'd even had the conversation with Sasuke after he'd summoned her in Rice; except when he'd asked why, it had been less an accusation and more like a serious, genuine query. "I want to see the nations too. I want to...get a chance."

"Yeah, Sakura-chan. If you want the offices can script you for short-forays abroad. Less long-term. It's just a matter of talking to Kakashi - "

"Damn it, Naruto. I need a _holiday_."

"Holidays don't take that long."

"I need a _long_ holiday."

"I know that you've worked hard. I know you need some time off, and I support that - but - "

"What? You and Sasuke ditched my ass for two whole years for soul searching purposes or whatever, you didn't hear me say a word about it. Mostly because you know, _you didn't tell me you were going,_ but fine. Water under the bridge. Naruto...everyone got the chance to leave. I'm not deserting. I just want to take the air? A little?"

"You're needed here, Sakura-chan..."

My_ ass_. Team Seven hadn't worked as a unit since before the war. Sasuke and Naruto had frolicked off, and Sakura and Sai occasionally teamed up with Yamato-taichou for missions.

Sakura wasn't even _on_ the field most assignments. Unless to answer the calls of high ranking clients like the daimyo who thought her a novel little mini-Tsunade, Sakura wasn't called for battle-oriented missions. It was 'peace time'. Sasuke was abroad doing his whole mysterious wandering rounin thing, Naruto had been snatched up for training for his guaranteed future as Hokage, and Kakashi was being an asshole.

She wanted to just, scream? She was so _tired?_ Naruto and his misplaced goodness. _Does Naruto know?_ Sasuke had echoed, same as Sai had all those months ago.

"I want you to be happy, Sakura-chan."

Happiness was for better people. Sakura sat up to look at him properly. Naruto meant it. His eyes were serious blue, his arms folded, his frown full of that gravitas that so infuriated Sasuke. He wanted her to be happy? Leaving the village wasn't going to make her happy. Her place, _Sasuke's_ place, was supposed to be by his side - they were supposed to _help_ him, but Naruto had knocked his elbows wide, kept them far, far away.

She thought he was ashamed of her. She then realized that Naruto was more than just that; he was seriously misguided into thinking that she had the same wishes she'd had when she was twelve. No doubt he thought she wanted to run off with Sasuke somewhere as soon as she ditched, shouldn't that have encouraged him? Wasn't that what he'd wanted for her? Sasuke?

Sasuke and Sakura could drink themselves under the table over how miserably misguided Naruto was. But if she didn't want Sasuke, what _did_ she want? She didn't want to raise that question with Naruto. It would lead to terrible places. Sakura wasn't going to do that to him. He was happy.

What would have made her happy was to have helped him. She'd left the dream she'd had when she was twelve and she'd carried his instead, quietly. But with the hard grit of a heart full of determined prayer. She wanted to see Naruto become Hokage, she wanted to make his dream come true.

But he had Shikamaru now, the Hyuugas, the clan elders; the village to prop him up. Love enough to overwhelm whatever little she could do. Naruto didn't need her.

That was okay too. She needed a new dream to take over the old. A new start. She was sure he'd do well without her, he already had.

Her lips pulled, the terse anger seeping from her shoulders. She was smiling then, tired but true. Naruto wanted her to be happy. She reached out and ruffled his hair. It was short beneath her fingers, and it felt nice to touch him so carelessly. "Of course, Naruto." She laughed, feeling her heart pitch down with useless hurt. She didn't lie to him again, he'd be forced to catch her out. "I'll be back soon."

"How soon?"

"Hopefully?" Once she forced herself to grin, it wasn't so bad. "You'll have grown out this horrible buzzcut by that time!"

* * *

The situation with Naruto had slowly been coming to a head for the past two years. Their confrontation at the swings was no sudden strike of sentiment, but stemmed from the political constraints that were further and further infringing on their relationship (or whatever was left of it after all these years) - The Hokage summit was coming up and Sasuke had been abroad for Naruto, doing the village's dirty work.

Sakura and the rest of the village knew better than to think Sasuke would just put on the yoke that easily but while the village had more or less forgiven Sasuke, it was more due to the fact that they could not resent him because that would assume that they could not trust the judgement of their golden Hokage. And he was golden.

Golden, golden Naruto - a veritable fall of glaring light, and Sasuke the deep, dark, plunging shadow that hid everything else unsavory.

Sasuke unnerved many. Some blamed him for the war, some blamed him for several other things; the Uchiha were like black cats, trouble always brewed in the blood of them and bad luck followed. Sasuke also came with a body count, Sakura knew. A _hefty_ body count.

Sasuke had put on the yoke. He'd have worn it forever if it meant the village would become the place all Itachi's sacrifice had yearned for.

However, Konoha was far from that dream - perhaps, further than either of them could forgive.

Sasuke did the village's dirty work. Sasuke spied, he reported back the activities of stray nuke-nin, determined threats, eliminated them. It was exactly the position he'd envisioned for himself, the knife hidden in the Hokage's sleeve. The perfect shinobi.

However, the clanheads thought that he was being given far too much free reign, running around as he was. They'd been nagging the same thing for forever, and it had never made a difference. For years, what they said never mattered. It was Naruto and Sasuke; nothing could come between them.

Sasuke's arguments with Naruto were frequent. They were frightening to all who were privy to them. Sakura didn't have to be part of the office to hear of it; she trusted them not to kill each other the way they'd tried before in the past, but it didn't mean she wanted to witness it.

Others witnessed it. Sasuke's attitude was called insubordinate and the actions of a jealous, power-hungry anarchist. Living up to the filthy Uchiha name.

He was out of the village often and barely home. When he came back home it was with tired shadows dragging under his eyes, his hands smelling of blood, his cloak stinking of smoke. Everything he'd ever done; containing insurgents, treaty-defying assassinations - all of it had been for the village.

Things took a turn for the worse once Himawari's was born; the arguments had intensified, taken off less of a friendly banter. Naruto hadn't outlawed the birdcage seal. The secret of the Uchiha massacre remained hidden with the meager few of the shinobi world, and it didn't even _matter_. Itachi's sacrifice was unknown, and Sasuke had no reason to reveal it. He didnt' see the importance of it until he realized that while he escaped the village on several occasions, the full brunt of the fear and suspicion was weathered by Sarada who did not have that liberty.

It was hard to break it to him. He didn't understand it the first time Sakura tried to explain it to him delicately. Sarada had difficulty making friends, was isolated and was developing a jaded attitude because of it. She was never physically bullied (Sakura would crack _skulls_ before that happened) but she suspected this was more in part because of the fear of the Uchiha name rather than the Haruno one.

She needed her father around. Sasuke couldn't stay. Secretly, the village made him sick but he couldn't reveal this, not with words. Sakura saw the deep exhaustion with which he set down his sword whenever he was welcomed home. He couldn't stay.

Sasuke confessed what he was truly doing outside the village to her. Like she hadn't already _known_ from her weekly meetings with Shikamaru.

He'd come home after his debriefing with the Hokage, blood crusted on his knuckles. Naruto. He'd broken his nose. She'd tried to take heart from it. Physical aggression wasn't the thing she feared from them. If Sasuke could still summon the rage to hit Naruto, it was normal, it could be _fixed._

Sarada had been six then, all those years ago. Fast asleep upstairs.

Sakura watched him wash the blood off his throat above the kitchen sink, his shoulders tense, bristling with barely restrained rage.

She knew he was still meeting up with Suigetsu and Juugo. She knew that his travels were not isolated to his missions alone, but that Sasuke was keeping an eye out. She'd understood that after the last three whackjobs to shake the shinobi world, Sasuke had a right to be paranoid, keep his nose to the air, root out any up and coming adversaries. A man like Sasuke could never sit still.

He told her then what she'd already known, about Oto. Destabilized. A magnet for political anarchy, for any war lord to establish himself. The people there were dying, and _Konoha does nothing._

Naruto had told him to be _patient_, Sasuke spat out the word, curdled. Sasuke had explained that it was those unstable countries that best bred the mad men who would come to threaten their future. The assassinations too, bewildered him. The fact that there were so many whispering in Naruto's ear, diplomats, psychoanalysts, the goddamn Hyuugas -

"So what is it that you're doing?"

She had still believed then, what Sasuke was starting not to. That many whispered in Naruto's ears, but Naruto would never listen. Sasuke's hand remained under the kitchen tap, the water running. He didn't move for a while. "Someone needs to keep an eye on things there."

"And you're that someone?"

Sasuke whipped around with a snarl, his mismatched eyes bright and angry. "I'm the one who knows them best. They _know_ me - "

"Because of Orochimaru." She nodded, and lobbed her roll of bandages at his head. Sasuke grunted, catching them easily, her flat tone of understanding had surprised him. Sakura had remained on the kitchen island, thoughtfully observing him as he wrapped his knuckles up, the pull of bandages between his teeth. Sasuke worked well, as if he'd been born with only one arm. He no longer needed help with these tasks and appreciated offers of it even less. Sakura didn't offer. "I get it."

"It's my responsibility."

And so it had gone. Sasuke kept expecting Naruto to do something, and Naruto loved to disappoint. The elders whispered that Sasuke was amassing forces, getting buddy with unsavory delinquents - was behaving less like a soldier and more like a general. Naruto had initially dismissed these rumors as maligned gossip, but it was becoming harder and harder to brush aside. Sasuke was keeping in touch with these 'unsavory' folk - Oto nins, rejects from Orochimaru's old labs, had even been involved in an altercation with the Raikage, _again._

That had almost caused another international incident. In his defense how was he supposed to know that the Raikage would be visiting the same seedy tea house as his foreign informant?

_That's because it wasn't a coincidence,_ Sakura had barely resisted from grinding the conclusion out. Furious. Perhaps it was even a trap. _Give him an excuse to kill you. Men like that don't just casually appear the same places as the people they've sworn to kill in the past._

Sakura knew he was amassing men. Sakura knew that Sasuke was all but the kage of Oto, at this rate. But he still came back to the village, never permanent anywhere. Still obeyed his Hokage. It was glaring enough that Naruto could no longer deny it and be taken seriously. Hiashi had been right.

Naruto's accusations began, spry little things, said as if in jest. The fights stopped getting physical. The rift could not have been fixed with blows this time. Sasuke felt injured, his pride as an Uchiha, his pride as a man. Naruto had done to him what he had done to Sakura. Their outings to drink had become fewer, until they suddenly stopped; the resentment more marked. Sakura barely ever saw Naruto, but she had always taken heart in the idea that at least he and Sasuke tended to share a drink once in a while.

_My responsibility_, Sasuke had said. She didn't try to convince him otherwise, it seemed unkind to do so. It seemed that every time Sasuke put one burden down he was picking another one up, it'd been that way his whole life. "You need to be here for Sarada too." She'd told him all those years ago. "You're her father."

He slowed, the knot of cloth twisting between his fingers, its ends caught between his back teeth. "I'm trying to be."

"Try harder," Sakura had shot back, and left the kitchen.

That had been years ago. Sakura had been excommunicated from Naruto's circle of advisers long before she'd ever even had a chance of being one. But that did not mean she didn't keep her ear to the ground; Sasuke wasn't the only one with half a brain.

Shikamaru, for one, treated her transparent method of keeping tabs on Naruto with respectful tolerance. He enjoyed her company; she was good at shogi, she had a quick mind, a knack for politics; which made it even more ridiculous that she'd been so distanced from the village's diplomatic workings; and Shikamaru probably knew that this was just as much bullshit as she did. Though he neither ever dared speak on it.

Sakura began their meetings when Sarada was three, just old enough for daycare. A year before Naruto was officially made Hokage. Sakura had shown up while he'd been contemplating the shouji board, as had been his habit for so many years - Sakura calmly slid into place and he'd looked at her, heavy lidded and slow, weighing.

Sakura had shrugged off her white coat, folded it over her lap, and moved the rook pawn forward. In two moves Shikamaru ate her bishop, maneuvering into the greatest shogi defence; the Yakgura castle formation. Their first real conversation started in the third week, the third time she played him, he'd beat her two times; the third game he found his king in a pincer grip, and he had frowned over the board.

Sakura had had every confidence he would maneuver out of it, and thus didn't claim victory then, but it was a victory of sorts to be spoken to. "Sasuke's attempts at redemption..."

"What about them?" Sakura had said. It had been a Saturday, Sarada and Shikadai in the kitchen fucking around with colouring books. Temari was in the training fields. It was a comfy, leaf-dappled silence, light and warm dark on the porch. The rustle of wind through high branches, birds, the occasional natter of children's voices punctuating the warm afternoon.

"You know just as much as I. They're about the only thing keeping him in this village."

"Should you be sharing this with me, Shikamaru?"

He cracked his shoulders, then huddled deeper. He steepled his fingers over his nose and it seemed a long while before his narrow eyes flicked to her again. "You were the Fifth's apprentice. I trust your insight, and your discretion. You are not here because we are friends; You know how the village runs itself."

"Discipline, respect."

"Underhanded bullshit too. It's customary shinobi behavior. You know what they say about Sasuke."

"Oh? What do they say about Sasuke, Shikamaru?"

She heard Sarada shout, bossy and shocked at whatever Shikadai had pulled. Then laughter again. Shikamaru's gaze sharpened at her light, bored tone. She knew exactly what they said about Sasuke. "He is invaluable to this village."

"Oh, now that? I haven't heard _that_, Shikamaru."

"It's troublesome. Many regard his closeness to Naruto with envy. Others will do anything to keep the Uchiha cloistered in Konoha forever. Sasuke is better dead to them than belonging to anyone else."

"Sasuke-kun doesn't _belong_ to anyone."

It was a lie. They both knew it then. Shikamaru moved a pawn, scooped up her rook. She moved her bishop. He shifted his rook and his king was free once more. It happened too quickly for her to have countered. Ingeniously. She realized then too, that her own king was trapped by its own pieces. She'd made too many sacrificial attacks during the game and had lost all her strongest pieces. Within the blink of an eye.

And for the next five years, whenever her shoulders felt heavy, her mind overwrought, she'd sit behind the shogi board, she'd seek Shikamaru.

Sometimes more than three times a week. He'd be there before his board, temples riddled in thought, terrible posture and all. Sakura would sit behind the board, they would play. They would talk about the Greater Game, sanctions against Rice country, mutterings of civil war in Iwa, the Hyuuga, the Uchiha, the Yamanaka...

As the Hokage's advisor these diplomatic untangling occupied him just as much as war strategy had. What treaties to sign, which ones to covertly break, who to murder - it was not so much a confession but a discussion. He trusted her because she believed in Naruto, he trusted her insight too, often times sharing with Shikamaru was just as close advising Naruto as she got; not that Shikamaru was blind to her intentions.

Sakura and Shikamaru wanted the prosperity of the village secured. Sakura had been the Fifth's apprentice, and she understood things, approached them in a way he appreciated.

"Your partner's stirring up trouble."

Sakura had come from the hospital one day with a tiredness that gnawed heavy into her shouderblades. Himawari had been born the week before. Tenten had not only had the audacity to turn down an invite into ANBU, but had formally resigned from active duty. That had been a statement in and of itself.

"Isn't Sasuke always stirring up trouble for someone?" She'd muttered, rubbing her temples. "He left this morning for Rice."

"It was difficult getting him to go. Naruto and him had a fight."

"They always fight."

"Sasuke took out blue prints of the Uchiha compound out of the village archives and destroyed them."

Sakura didn't say a word. Shikamaru had been watching her closely, to see how she'd react. She hadn't heard, Sasuke hadn't told her. But she couldn't very well pretend she hadn't expected it. "In all fairness, that _is_ technically his property."

"Naruto asked him why."

"Sasuke got defensive."

"Of course. He wouldn't say though."

"It's his business."

"But blue prints? To what end?"

"Clans should have their secrets, even a clan of one. Those blue prints shouldn't have been there in the first place for any one to just look at." Sakura turned around the heart of the matter with acrobatic lightness. Sasuke didn't even use the Uchiha compound unless it was to train, and they lived far enough away from it. "He could have been more discrete."

"He had the ability to, didn't he?"

"...A gesture, too."

"Intended or not, that was also one."

That he didn't trust Naruto. That he didn't trust the village. Like Tenten, Sasuke was turning away. She knew it just as much as Shikamaru did.

The night Naruto came to her with all his self-righteous accusations had been the day Sasuke had left for his last mission as a shinobi of Konoha.

He'd talked to her at length about it too, that he was making arrangements to leave, that he would hand in his forehead protector soon. He'd already been setting the new village frame work up; he talked to her with the lightness and hopefulness of a child in his heart, of the orphanages he would built, the rice mills, the bamboo fields he wanted to show Sarada. A new clan base for the Uchiha.

He'd been discussing it with her for ages, ever since the Hyuuga had used a council meeting as a platform to publicly accuse him of taking liberties on his missions outside to plot against the village. The accusation had been ridiculous, Naruto didn't agree with it, but he wasn't loud enough in his disagreement. A hundred years ago he's have knocked Hiashi's teeth out, but he'd been diplomatic, tilted his head and _listened_. Sasuke had played the village's tool just as his brother had, and things with Naruto had died a traitor's death, a swift execution.

Sasuke had left that morning. That afternoon Sakura had seen Shikamaru, he explained to her that _words_ had been had. Sasuke had spoken his intentions and given in papers for the lawful demolishment of the Uchiha estate; Naruto had been thunderous. Sakura had been afraid, relieved; she'd wanted more for herself, for Sarada. This was the opportunity for more.

That night, Naruto had found her. She'd been indecisive before, but the change in him was a betrayal that further cemented her determination to leave.

There was an opportunity for more. Head of the Hospital, the Fifth's apprentice; Sakura was a knife that wanted a new edge, to sharpen, to be whittled. To cut away all the parts that she no longer needed, that weighed her down, so steeped in sadness and misery and regret, it was good to be angry again. To want things for herself.

Naruto was lost to them.

There was nothing left here anymore.

* * *

Sarada loved Saturdays.

She loved waking up bright and early to her mom flipping pancakes, and sometimes when her father was around – to _Sasuke_ flipping pancakes. He'd burn the edges badly and looked at her so intensely helpless that she sacrificed her tastebuds to crunch down the grittled, blackened edges of his concoctions. Her father was occasionally a good cook, pancakes however, were not his forte.

Saturday was mom's day off. They'd have a hearty breakfast, and clean up to the silly pop songs on the radio; sometimes a soap sud fight would ensue, but by the time Sarada got back to her room drowned in the squeaky lemony whiff of dish-washing gel there'd already be clothes set out for her on her bed. Something pretty and summery.

This Saturday was a white sundress that floated right below the knees, hanging off her shoulders by pretty white straps. It was airy and light. Mother and daughter would often have matching sets for the day out and Sakura would come out of the shower in the very same outfit, and comb Sarada's hair out.

Sarada always stared at her, engrossed in the task. It couldn't be helped. With her strange, cotton candy hair and her green eyes Sakura was the most beautiful Kunoichi in fire country. Her colors strange and ethereal, to others she was a legend, but to Sarada she was even more.

Her white summer dress, her mother let her own hair down, and Sarada felt warm in her chest, happy. Her mother was the strongest kunoichi in the world, she glowed with a light that snuffed out every other woman to Sarada – her mother, she'd heard, had punched out a goddamned goddess. Her mother was a student of the Senju Tsunade, could lay to waste an entire platoon with her pinky, could break and make every bone in a shinobi's body. Her mother was a killer and a healer – and she'd shown that a kunoichi could be both feminine _and _strong, that the two weren't mutually exclusive. On Saturdays her mother would take off her lab-coat and together they put on sandals, sundresses, straw hats.

When her mother brushed out her hair Sarada felt cute and girly, a Saturday feeling.

Saturday was always strictly girls day out unless her dad was in town, and then Sakura would drag him along with them and make him pay for their movie tickets.

Today they set out into the morning fresh and early, a basket in the crook of her mother's arm – in matching white with wide brimmed hats, like they were on the beach. First stop was the Uchicha compound.

Their little family lived on the outskirts of the Nara forest in a little estate not unlike the one that Sakura'd been gifted by the daimyo. Sarada had known about the massacre and her father had told her the truth of it - a truth that no one else knew. Sarada wondered if her classmates would even care to hear it, she was already Uchiha to them.

Sarada understood that the compound carried a lot of painful memories for her father, which was why they only visited it to use its private training dojos, and for father to ruminate on the sharingan-coded texts, or to visit the dear little temple shrine.

Saturday's first stop was always the little shrine. They'd kneel into the silk pillow and light incense, and Sarada would say prayers for her first mother along for the other dead Uchiha.

Bolt, when he'd found out that badly kept secret, had narrowed his eyes and scowled, demanding with petulance how someone could have _two_ mothers. Sarada had coolly informed him that she was just really lucky.

Sakura and Sarada would kneel next to each other, heads bowed, leaving offerings as different as the last. Once her father had brought a small vial of clear liquid that Sarada unstopped only to realize it was perfume; orange blossoms and wild cherry stalks. Sometimes Sakura brought dango to the shrine, and another time she'd brought a tube of violently red lipstick.

"Your mother was wild," Sakura had told her, severely respectful. "She was the wildest bitch that ever lived, and she was the only one I knew who could pull off those hotpants."

"Were you friends with Mama Karin?"

"I never really got the chance to know her," Sakura had frowned, with that odd mixture of warmth and regret called wistfulness, "but I think if she'd been alive then I'd have really liked her as a worthy rival and a worthier friend. Your mother was a hero, she stood by your father and kept him in line, and she was determined. Your father wouldn't be alive if it wasn't for her. She was a genius, too. Just like you."

Sarada had studied her knees. Feeling warm with the praise.

"And I know for one," Sakura had rested her palm over her dark hair, smiling, soft with deepest sincerity. "That she's really proud of you."

* * *

Her life was meant to begin. Sakura was supposed to build her own legend, get caught up in wanderlust and tangle up in her own adventures. She was supposed to be free, to cut off Konoha like hair splitting beneath a kunai – shake her head out, become something, wade into the wild.

But when it comes to choosing between Naruto and Sasuke, and herself? It's about as easy as breathing. As instinctual as the jam of her wrist between ribs she split open.

Sakura doesn't even have to think about it, she has never had to think about it. She loses, gladly.

It's Suigetsu who finds her. The skinny pale one with teeth like a saw. The serrated grin is nowhere to be seen however, and that stops Sakura from launching into the ritual witty pre-battle banter. She drops her fists, heart stopping for a hard, choking moment, before it leaps up, starts _racing_. Suigetsu's breathing hard, a sheen of sweat on his hairless arms, and he says, "Shit. There's trouble, Sasuke told me to get you – come on, _come on_ – "

She follows, tearing after Sasuke's two years lost teammate without another word. Her mind's making leaps, frightened leaps, like she can't do this again - she can't see another one of them get kissy with death, and fucking try to _die_ on her - but Sakura snaps the spine of her fear like a toothpick between thumb and fore-finger. Her training takes over and she barks questions at Suigetsu's back; Patient condition as he left it, damage sustained, the nature of the emergency, what emergency medical measure they'd been using -

It takes the split second of shock at the sight of Sasuke, bloody to the elbows, as red as a the shock of Uzumaki hair. Sasuke looks at her; like someone on his knees. It's stupid, they're all fucking_ stupid_ \- the girl shouldn't have run so far, and ended _here_ of all places. The border village clinic is shoddy, with no trained medic ninjas on hand, just civilian physicians who are ill equipped to deal with the chakra complications that may arise (and have, in this case - stupid, stupid, _stupid_) in kunoichi birth.

She knocks the civilian doctors aside with her elbows, unzips her medical equipment and barks for hot water. Sasuke's speaking, like a child, inarticulate ramblings, his hands are shaking and his one tomoe-spinning eye weeps red - "Sakura fix it, fix it please," and it's the first time he's ever begged her for anything, and it's so wrong, Sasuke has never begged her for _anything_ \- "I tried to do the exercises you did - I copied them - but she's just - Sakura - "

_Sakura._

* * *

Sarada sniffs disdainfully at the "FUN BARREL" – or what Tenten's chosen to label (in disgustingly cheerful yellow) the wooden keg full of plastic dummy kunais. "Why can't I have the real thing?"

After the shrine, Saturday's usually comprised of making the same rounds. After going off to visit Sakura's own parents where Sarada was shamelessly spoiled, and subjected to her grandfather's inanely lame dad jokes Saturday would continue with Sarada and Sakura going to the market to do a little bit of personal shopping. Normally the day of the week that she was indulged best in more civilian things, the thrift shops and flea markets all fanfare in the streets. Purchases included things like hairpins and shoes. After they'd got their fill of all their baubles they'd go to Aunt Tenten's shop.

The Weapons Mistress had gone into storage for the sealing blue prints that she and Sakura had been working on as their new project – they did this almost every Saturday. Sometimes even on Fridays too when Sakura would pick Sarada from the academy and they'd make their way here where Tenten would make adjustments to current seals.

The two kunoichi would share animated, academic discussions on how to improve the boring, old seal structures on scrolls, explosive tags, sealing jutsu – mostly over strong tea. Sarada always tried to take that as her cue to fuck around with everything pointy while her mother's back was turned.

"Because." Sakura plucked up a kusunagi from one of the taller wracks, placed out of the way of the vertically challenged i.e Sarada.

It was lacquered black and her thumb smoothed over the leaf detail on the side before she slid the blade out of the sheath and appeared to be contemplating whether or not she should get it for Sasuke. Sasuke was too much of a snob to be into anything that wasn't custom made for him. Taking him shopping was an _endeavor_.

"Dad said that – "

"Your father, bless his heart," Sakura leveled out her palms beneath the blade, weighing it for balance. "Talks a lot of shit."

She swung the blade in a tight circle, then started distractedly whirling it around from the wrist with the rest of her body still while making a show of frowning over Tenten's more recent notes.

Sarada's scowl was nasty. "Cut it out."

"Hm," She flipped it masterfully, attention on the scroll she blew on her hot tea. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Now you're just showing off!"

She tossed the blade up into the air, snapping the sheath in as it fell and put it back on the wrack in one smooth motion. "You're just jelly."

"You sure you don't wanna get that?" Tenten grunts when she returns, sharply smoothing apart a particularly ink crowded scroll on the counter top and Sakura hums in interest, leaning back towards their seals.

"Nah."

Sarada had heard a lot about Tenten, that she was a ninjutsu buff, a weapon specialist unparalleled. That she'd turned down an invite to ANBU apparently on the grounds that she would never hide behind a mask, determined to build her own notoriety so that her reputation was just as feared as Senju Tsuande's. Sarada had also known never to ask Aunt Tenten about why she wasn't on active duty anymore, Sakura never warned her against it in so many words, but it just seemed...bad form to pry.

Tenten was also an expert seal master and Sakura was learning from her too. Sakura found it nice to find someone who wanted to talk about these things, who wanted to create new things. With Tenten Sakura felt like someone who contributed. Tenten was possibly the most practical person Saura knew; to the point, invested in what she did, and damned good at it too.

Also as the only two girls of their peer group without some fierce clan bloodline secrets highly-classicist bullshit, sharing company with each other was natural and incredibly refreshing.

"Auntie! Would you tell her!"

Tenten's mouth quirked, canting her a wry look. "Your daughter wants a real live kunai."

"You can give her the same answer I gave her two seconds ago," Sakura peered over the newest adjustment Tenten had proposed, brow wrinkling in concentration. "Which was, to be clear, a very succinct hell naw."

"Your mother says no." Tenten reported gravely and Sakura pretended not to see her slip Sarada the trip wire from her pocket, or hear the whispered. "Also doubles as garotte string. Have fun."

"Ugh," Sakura muttered once Sarada's danced away with her prize to mess about in the corner, but her grin shone through the motherly disapproval. "You spoil her."

"Just doing my job," Tenten seated herself behind the counter. "How're things with Sasuke?"

"Good. I mean, he's _trying_," Sakura tipped back on her stool. "We went to the movies last week, he sat through two hours of magical girl crap because Sarada wanted to see it. He didn't even complain. To be honest I think he enjoyed it."

Tenten chuckled, "I can't imagine it. Bring any guys back recently?"

"Nah. Still waiting till Sarada's older before I get into dating again. I don't want to bring strange men home."

"Older, that'd be what…in…eight more years?"

"Yep," Sakura popped the 'p', grinning knowingly. "Probably."

"That's a long drought, Sakura. Even for you."

She knew that it'd never been easy for anyone to talk about Sasuke, a lot of resentment stemmed from the topic. In the Sasuke-retrieval mission Tenten had nearly lost both of her teammates, but Tenten had seemed to be either be genuinely indifferent to Sasuke, or ask after him simply because he mattered to Sakura. Either way, Tenten was a kunoichi to the core, and Sakura's friend. She didn't have the time to hate Sasuke forever.

Sakura wasn't entirely celibate, but she grinned, dry. "Don't worry, if the itch becomes unbearable I'll just take a mission abroad and get my kicks off there."

Tenten laughed, admiring. "Wow." She crossed out a seal with the flick of her wrist. "We should still go out for drinks sometime, right?"

"Oh, hell yeah!" Sakura said indignantly, "Oh, I've noticed something weird, remember when you made that tiger mark for the new explosive seal? Over the ram– that last minute shift? How about we apply this again with this one here for a more controlled effect? It was pretty ingenious, cuts out a lot of the unnecessary middle business – "

Tenten followed attentively. They spent two hours there, halfway through Sarada's stomach rumbled loudly, and Sakura's joined it mutinously. Tenten rolled her eyes and ordered sushi through a club she'd discovered in the red light district.

It was delicious, glutinous stuff, even Sarada didn't fuss over it the way she always did. Customers came and went, most of them special jounin, Tenten and Sakura were so engrossed in their work that Tenten didn't even go through the formalities of flirting with the young, easily-flustered fresh chuunin that came in for her merchandise – the delivery boy even left with his butt unpinched.

They fell between intermittently teasing Sarada about boys and exchanging saucy gossip about up and coming jounin. Konohamaru came in at some point for a new batch of smoke bombs and to authoritatively dispel some rumours, add in some of his own, and correct misconceptions - he was really just as bad as Ino. Sarada turned tomato red once the door jingled to admit his exit and the two older women started poking her with their chopsticks, teasing her.

At the end of it was two in the afternoon and they decided to call it a day. Sarada pretended to be sulky the whole way back because she was still Uchiha, but Sakura had studied Sasuke for enough years to know exactly how she felt – she skipped ahead, crowing in irritation for her mother to hurry up, and when Sakura was taking too long a time enjoying the sun as they walked back Sarada ran back and grabbed her by the hand, and _dragged._

Konoha was beautiful. Summer in the air and the sky robin-blue and hot enough it verged on muggy. Leaving would be difficult for all of them – her daughter's hand was sticky and small, but it was strong. She smiled. Sasuke was still ironing out the details and Sarada would follow him anywhere, even if it meant leaving her friends behind. Sakura hadn't gotten the sleep required since the night before, Naruto's self-righteous blather had knocked her out of sync.

Tenten didn't need any more reasons to hate Naruto and Sakura had wanted to be distracted with something idle and normal for a change. Talking about the encounter the night before would only sour everything, anyway it was hardly something she could discuss with anyone except Sasuke.

She pulled Sarada up into the air by her wrists and Sarada squeeled, "Mom! Put me down!"

"Nope," Sakura said, and Sarada stretched, trying to make her toes skim the ground. Sakura just effortlessly lifted her higher. "You should eat more. Don't pull any of that diet crap."

"Diets are stupid!"

Sakura's smile widened in smug pride, she lowered Sarada back to the ground. "That's my girl. Now, you're gonna show me what you learnt with that fancy string Tenten gave you today, just so I know you won't end up strangling yourself."

* * *

In the first formation of Konoha, the Uchiha were called demons.

Sakura had dealt easily with amniotic fluid embolism in civilian pregnancies. It was a rare complication and was often acerbated under the shoddy care of civillian doctors. However with a medic trained arriving on the scene the situation was never beyond repair; amniotic fluid, fetal skin and other cells usually entered the mother's blood stream and triggering an allergic reaction. It was up to the medic to use their chakra to funnel out the impurities as they would a poison, as white cells muddled about, attacking the body furiously in a confused bid to protect itself without realizing what it was destroying.

The allergic reaction often led to the mother collapsing suddenly during the birth of the baby, which explained Karin's prone state. Amniotic fluid embolism often resulted in the death of the mother.

In the case of kunoichi, the occurrence was even rarer, and not as easily combated. It was not simply the baby's fetal matter that traveled up Karin's bloodstream, but a chakra, foreign despite being carried in the womb for more than eight months - in the formation of Konoha Uchiha's had been called demons and the Uchiha Fever occurred due to the dark, malevolent matter of their chakra.

The reason the Uchiha usually inbred was not because they were simply elitist bastards alone, but also because it was often found that Uchiha women had the chakra make up best suited to carry the birth to term.

Not that there weren't a few illicitly made bastards floating about as a result of extra marital Uchiha hankypanky. If Itachi's elemental nation-wide cleanse of these offshoots was any indication, it _was_ possible for Uchiha children to born to non Uchiha mothers. However, rarely did the kunoichi mistresses impregnated live to talk about it, and when they did live, the strain on the woman often meant they were not suited to carrying another pregnancy to term.

The Uchiha usually did not have more than two or three children, labor was intensive, pregnancy was an ordeal. The whole process during the nine month period was closely monitored as miscarriages were high risk.

Had Sakura been there earlier she might have been able to save her, made the organs regenerate themselves constantly as they were destroyed. A vicious cycle not worth living through for the rest of one's life. But the chakra had already struck inside the skull, roiling and eating, and killing. It was too late.

Karin's body was too weak, she'd put strain on it trying to run from Sasuke. Though she must have been caught at some point for her to actually _conceive _before taking off, sometime after Sakura had left him; maybe Karin had been afraid of Sasuke finding out, maybe she'd just been afraid. Women in love run for all sorts of reasons.

Sakura tried everything she could but Karin...Karin's chakra too, worked against her. As a sensory ninja her chakra system was highly at risk, highly attuned to every little change and unable to ignore them, highly responsive to even the subtlest shifts and was even more vulnerable to chakra poisoning. And the seed of Uchiha Sasuke's chakra was blackest of them all. She died.

She died, had already slipped into a comma before Sakura arrived. Her body destroyed herself. Foreign chakra was impossible to filter off like a poison, it had a mind of its own, Sakura tried - she wanted at least, for Karin to wake up. To be awake to hold her child for the precious few moments left to her. To do it just once. Just once.

Sakura did everything she could, and it wasn't enough.

* * *

It was a while before Sasuke came out of the clinic, and when he did, he walked right past her. Sakura called his name, he didn't listen. She would have gone after him but the bundle in her arms made a feeble croak, and Sakura couldn't dart after Sasuke then.

She paced the badly lit lobby, cooing half-heartedly at the child, her head filled with too much thinking. God, Sasuke had looked like death warmed over, that frightening glazed look in his eyes, like he wasn't even there.

Sakura tried not to be worried, she bit down on her bottom lip and jiggled the baby. She was the smallest thing, her hair dark and black like clotted tar. Good health, good weight, ten fingers, ten toes. No abnormalities. Perfectly healthy.

She sat down heavily on one of the plastic white chairs, and it took everything in her not to bow over the baby and howl. God, Sasuke. That poor girl. Sasuke, a father. What was he thinking? What were they both thinking? She tried to think those boringly moral thoughts, she was a kunoichi. It didn't matter what any of them had been thinking - it was unplanned. Sasuke, a father. He had no business being one. Not now.

She tried not to be worried. Juugo was outside, she could trust Sasuke's teammates to follow him in case he did something drastic. She expected the ground to shake, and it did, she heard a cry, a scream of grief that tore her in two.

It was Sasuke, that noise had come from _Sasuke_ \- the baby erupted in wails, as if in echo, so very loud in the hallway. Sakura felt tears bite the back of her eyes, ground her teeth, and huddled over it. She could still hear Sasuke, roaring like a lion with a spear in its side, and she tightened her arms around the little girl. Tried to calm her, but she wouldn't _stop_. Sakura hardly could either, it was too much. Her sight stained with it, till she could barely see. She smiled down at the child, a wobble of lips, hushing and rocking her in her arms.

"It's alright," a tumble of lies, "It's alright. Ssssh. There, there."

She didn't realize she had company until she saw bleary blue in her vision. Sakura blinked away her tears, and sniffled for composure. It was the Mist nin, on his haunches infront of her. He was pale, like years of cold, and he studied her without heart, drained.

He looked at Sakura, never once glancing at the baby in her arms, and just waited.

It was a while before he said anything. Like speaking through a stone. "She in there?"

The body.

Sakura could barely find the strength to nod, she felt like she'd swallowed a bone. The baby was still shrieking and she'd given up on rocking it. The reasons for her displeasure were clear; she needed to be fed, she needed her mother's arms, her father's, not Sakura's useless platitudes, the ineffectual cage of her hold. It unnerved her, Suigetsus's fixed stare.

Suigetsu nodded, his jaw a tight clench. But he did not get up to see, to go to the room. His eyes drifted down to the floor, his voice removed. "You didn't save her."

Sakura's head wanted to burst. She hadn't been strong enough, a girl had died. For a while over the screaming she couldn't hear Sasuke anymore, either he'd stopped, or the baby was just that loud.

She felt drained, the room was too bright. She had to get Sasuke to get it together. Had to take the child back to the nearest hospital so they could monitor her with equipment that Sakura did not have on hand - the baby was healthy now, but her situation still needed more eyes, better eyes. Professionals in post-natal, chakra specialists, she didn't know how the baby's chakra network could behave. She needed to talk to Sasuke.

Talk - her throat closed, talk to the doctors about the _body_. Call Naruto too, she realized and wanted to double over, eyes clenched, Naruto needed to know. Karin...She'd been Uzumaki. Sakura didn't know how relevant clan ties could be to two people who'd never met and never been aware of the other's existence...but he had the right to know. God, the politics of it was exhausting. It was selfish to think of it that way. Suigetsu was right, she didn't save Karin. It didn't matter that she'd tried everything in her power to do it, it didn't matter that the laws of chakra itself had made the task impossible. Sakura knew she was supposed to have been equipped to make miracles, it was why Sasuke had called for her - he'd trusted her, he'd _needed_ her, and she'd failed.

She didn't have the energy to take offence at Suigetsu's thinly veiled accusations, he was right anyway.

The baby stopped crying suddenly. She looked down to see the girl had fallen into fitful sleep, exhausted. If she wasn't fed soon, she'd fall into fever, would die. Sakura was ready to engineer formula and force feed the girl shoddy substitute, but Sakura's medical equipment held all the applications for poison, antidote creation - gauze for wrapping wounds. Battle geared. She hadn't prepared on her journey for the eventuality of emergency _labor_.

Everything she needed was back in Konoha.

Suigetsu tilted his head idly, at Sasuke's cries. Each scream knocked the walls of Sakura's psyche like tremors of a collapsing building, she wondered how Suigetsu could look so removed. Shock, perhaps.

He didn't ask her if he could hold the baby, and she didn't offer. They waited in silence - waiting for a storm to pass.

* * *

Konoha was most beautiful when the sun set, it was like swimming in amber, warm, safe. Sakura runs her hands beneath the cool rush of water, smiling. She can hear Sarada's exertions, whipping and grunting about the training stumps, less frustrated training and more like she's taking joy in her own strength. Her daughter is strong, and in this hour she is happy.

Sakura wipes her hands on a towel, glancing back at the chunks of ice floating in the lemonade. They've had a productive day, a fun day. Work with Tenten always let her blow off some team, to feel useful. After that the three hour training session with Sarada had been less instruction and more play. Sakura had taken the garotte string with her when she entered the house and left Sakura battling the posts. Sarada, for all her pretend sulkiness, had enjoyed it too.

After tomorrow it'd be back to work. She had about three pending cases and was awaiting a toxicity report from the lab, but all that faded away. With Sarada she could allow herself to forget. With Sasuke gone, one of them had to be around more even if it was sometimes difficult to make the time to pick Sarada from school, Sakura tried her best to make it work. She remembered an ANBU team had been sent to the Village of Hidden Spring on a tricky retrieval mission, with luck she might not get the midnight emergency call to perform critical surgery.

However, it felt minor to be worrying about later when she had now.

She looked out the kitchen window into the amber doused woods. The sun would set in an hour, falling quickly, but as it went it touched everything in its brilliant gold, turning to orange, to pink, to red. Sakura felt a little tired, but good. A warm kind of tired. She began to hum to herself, running her hand under her hair, pulling it away from her nape.

"Sarada!" Sakura called. She hit the button of the rotator fan in the corner of the kitchen, standing into it with a pleasured sigh. The cool air felt good on her fever hot skin. The sticky, humid strands of her hair whipped irritatingly around her jaw. She closed her eyes, the fans whirring and the air buzzing.

Sarada didn't materialize in the doorway. Girl had a habit of dragging her feet but as far as Sakura was aware Sarada wasn't in the mood for throwing Uchiha scale tantrums today.

Sakura blinked, the skin of her face still felt hot. She switched off the fan and called again. When no answering cry came, she frowned, tilted her head and listened.

Nothing.

She couldn't hear the sound of feet rushing over ground. She couldn't hear Sarada anymore. Only the stifled stir of tree leaves in a choked breeze.

Sakura snatched her hand off the countertop and made her way quickly through the corridor. The last time she thought that someone tried kidnapping the Uchiha heir Sakura managed to destroy 15% of the Nara forest.

Shikamaru had taken it better than most would have, which was to say that he exhaled deeply through his nose and started complaining about achy joints.

Laughter. Sakura felt her heart slow, less jumpy. Sarada laughing. She felt a smile tug at her own mouth. It wasn't often Sarada acted like a young, carefree girl, and it was difficult to get her to crack a smile. But then, Sakura's palm grasped at the wall behind her. Sarada wasn't one to sit by herself and giggle either. Someone else was with her, she could hear talking.

Sakura stepped outside, shielding her eyes from the glare of the setting sun.

"Mom! Look!" Sarada whipped around, silver glinting between her fingers. Every fiber in Sakura's being jolted at the shriek of delight, every molecule in her body screamed at her to rip her daughter away. The sun setting was direct enough to strike anyone blind, but Sakura could see the dazzle of its red glare on white sleeves, drenching them almost vermilion, and Naruto's hair like burnished copper in it.

For one excruciating moment she was petrified in place. Naruto, here. With Sarada.

"Hokage-sama dropped by!" Sarada was beaming, her small face bright. Sakura felt in her a deep, dreadful roiling before she swallowed down her wariness – and forced a light, fluttery smile to her face. Kind, pleased to see the both of them. Who wouldn't be pleased to see the Hokage? Weren't they once teammates? She had enough sense not to show her daughter any misgivings. "He even gave me some of his shurinken!"

Sarada's hair ruffled under Naruto's large hand, he was on one knee, grinning. She hated him. She hated that he looked every bit the Golden Hokage, kind and warm – so golden, so golden it hurt the eyes. She hated even more his easy laughter, laughter only a fool could believe thoughtless. Naruto, on their property, touching her family, making Sarada smile.

Her daughter rushed towards her, chattering. Sakura fortified the smile into something softer, she didn't want her daughter to sense anything was amiss. She would not allow Sarada to sense her unease.

"I know – " Sarada averted her eyes, "I know you said only dummy shurinken, but I'll be really careful! I'll – "

Naruto spoke up, bright and rough. "I'm sure you won't mind, Sakura-chan."

Sakura felt her blood _boil_. She ruffled Sarada's hair, knitting her fingers into her scalp.

"Hokage-sama's teaching me how to throw."

Sakura looked at Naruto, she hadn't looked away. Watching him like a beartrap. Her nerves were still frayed from their last argument, his arrival too unexpected. Sasuke wasn't here. Naruto never came around. She'd been trying to get him to come over for the past eight years, and to see him now made her uneasy, angry too, it set her off balance. Naruto still had his elbows on one of his knees, looking up to her with that faint curve of mouth, which Sakura guessed might be more for Sarada's benefit than anyone else's. And she didn't automatically rip him a new one for Sarada's benefit either.

Her heart was beating fast and fluttery, the pitter-patter plunge of adrenaline that normally came just before a fight. When she felt she had most to lose.

It used to be that she never knew where she stood with Sasuke. Now, so many years later, she didn't know where she stood with Naruto.

Only that his being here felt like the skate of a knife over her spine. She'd loved him, she'd believed in him and had been blinded. It was not contrition she felt for the other night, but a jumbled sort of apprehension and rage.

"Mom?" Sarada asked hesitantly.

Sakura pulled her fingers out of her dark hair and stroked them over Sarada's temples. Dropping her eyes with a smile again. "You'll give the Hokage his kunai before he leaves," Sakura said gently, but firmly.

"Aw mom!"

"You know the rules," Sakura said, easily cutting her off. "Come on. Thank the Hokage."

Sarada looked on the verge of tears, but frigid composure overcame her and she turned to the Hokage, stifling her bristling anger. Sarada bowed, "Thank you, Hokage-sama, but dad and mom don't let me play with kunai unless I'm being supervised."

"That's okay," Naruto said with the soft gentleness Sakura remembered so long ago when he often consoled her, he drew his fingers up and two shadow clones popped up. The smoke cleared and Sarada gaped, bright eyed at the rares display of the Hokage's signature jutsu. "These two will supervise," he jerked a thumb towards his two cohorts. His blue eyes flicked up to Sakura again, as if to ask permission. "I'll talk with your mom a little?"

Sakura fought down a fresh surge of annoyance. How respectful, how hesitant. A long time ago she might have been overjoyed at the idea of Naruto paying Sarada any attention, but now she felt only unease - Naruto wanted to keep them in Konoha, and Sarada _idolized_ him. Sarada would pester her constantly of tales about the Hokage on the war, and Sakura could just see the girl brimming with the excitement. The Hokage teaching her how to throw kunai, _wait till she told everyone at the academy!_

Sakura was not pleased. That was Sasuke's duty, she was Sasuke's daughter. Naruto's presence was not only unwelcome, it was calculated, whether displacing Sasuke in so minor a way was intentional or not did not matter.

"Come in and have a drink first," Sakura spoke to Sarada in stead of answering the Hokage.

"I'll drink later!" Sarada said brightly and was already rushing off towards the posts. A beat or two later, Naruto's copies seeped away to follow her.

Sakura looked at Naruto long and hard. The smile dimming as her mouth thinned, no friendliness in her features, she had to keep her composure. Keep it professional. She was due her rage.

The high trees danced a peculiar medley on Naruto's skin. Dappled sunlight made his skin into a patchwork of dark shadow, blood-bloom red and gold. The whiskers against his jaw looked like the old slashes of a knife, and Naruto's eyes were cooler now, the tiniest flecks of cat green flashing around the iris the way a coin catches the light. His mouth though, was a more solemn line.

Sakura on the other hand was beaten by the heat, hair sticky on her throat and the skin on her arms tingling from a narrow escape from sunburn. Her white dress; she refused to feel frivolous in it. Not everyone had to show up everywhere in military fatigues and Hokage cloaks; standard intimidation tactics. Saturday belonged to Sarada, to Sakura, Naruto was an unwelcome interruption, an unexpected one. And it dwelled on her with the uneasy weight of a bad omen.

"Come in," she told him flatly already turning and not caring to see if he followed.

She led Naruto into their little kitchen, heard him take a seat while she turned for glasses in the cabinet. Sakura plucked one up and sat it in front of him on the countertop. "Water or Lemonade?" She asked shortly, in a tone that suggested she did not care for the answer. So direct it verged on rude. She'd learnt all her pissyness from Sasuke-kun.

"...Sakura-chan - "

"Lemonade it is."

Naruto dipped his chin in a short nod, eyes dropping as if to stoically accept her rudeness. It made her even madder, she wanted Naruto, just once to react to her - to get into a proper confrontation that actually led somewhere. He'd always been that way. Except for the other night, and even then he'd been subdued. He could never get properly angry with her and she hated him for it.

Sakura poured the Hokage a drink.

She set the jug down, ice cubes clinking, and lay her palms on the countertop, the heat made her huffy, she could feel the unflattering splotchy red her face had become from her exertions with Sarada, from the muggy afternoon. She could behave like a professional.

Naruto was contemplating his hands, likely going over his words. Godamn diplomat.

It was strange to see him in their little kitchen, she'd wanted it for so long, for Naruto to come in and dip his head beneath the short doorframe and make himself at home at the table. She'd valued his friendship enough to push away her useless longing, had told herself that Naruto's happiness could involve this little kitchen too. Sasuke, Sakura, Sarada - Uncle Naruto come in for breakfast or dinner, the warm familiarity he'd denied them all.

The Naruto of now was broad-shouldered, sitting on the stool at the kitchen island. The kitchen was orange, like it was on fire, and the glare came down in the window behind her and dragged shadows across every surface. Naruto say with his hands together, tightly wrapped in white bandages, he wasn't wearing his hat. He seemed too big for her kitchen, somehow familiar and yet so, so _foreign_. She'd dreamed it for so long, that having him here now just incensed her.

She refused to be ashamed for the words she spoke the other night. For the unexpected confession of her feelings, the ugly outburst that allowed her to think that she might be able to do what she'd been too chicken shit to do for so long - to cut Naruto from her life completely. It shouldn't even have been hard, for all that he featured in it.

If he brought anything up she could rip him a new one.

"I'm sorry." Naruto said.

Despite herself, her heart kicked a little. Naruto raised his eyes then and they were the same deep blue she remembered. Strong. The admission was sincere, serious, and Sakura didn't want to believe him. She couldn't afford to. Not after everything.

"Whatever for, Hokage-sama?" She asked dully, cold.

He scrubbed a hand over his eyes, wincing as if she'd cut him. "Don't call me that, please."

"I'd rather not carry on the charade," Sakura replied. She was speaking in her kunoichi voice, her soldier's voice, edged with coldness. A blunted kunai. "You are ten years too late."

Naruto made a fist on the table, he looked down to his fingers with his mouth twisting round the beginnings of a grimace. "I'm sorry," he opened his palm again, laid them down on the countertop as if he thought they might start shaking. "Sakura, please." He repeated, useless, soft and agonised. "I'm sorry. I've not been there, I spoke out of turn."

Sakura took a deep breath, folded her arms. Braced herself. It took her a while before she could speak again, properly. More herself. "I don't forgive you."

Naruto slipped his hands back into his lap, he dropped his gaze again. His eyelashes were brilliant red, bladed in sunlight.

"Not until you let us go."

"I don't want to fight about this with you," Naruto murmured and with the exhaustion she could tell that he meant it. "I don't like fighting with you, Sakura-chan."

It had always infuriated her that he had the audacity to address her so familiarly and yet leave her out in the cold so many times. "Sasuke-kun's going to hand in his forehead protector as soon as he gets back. There is nothing you can do."

"Sasuke left once before."

"He isn't coming back."

"I kept his Konoha headband then, I can give it back to him a hundred times."

"Naruto," Sakura's lungs felt squeezed, once upon a time she might have supported Naruto's assertions, his beliefs; when she'd believed he believed in them, and now she just _couldn't_. "We aren't twelve anymore."

"You think I haven't _noticed?_" His voice caught on the beginnings of a snarl. The heat of his eyes was angry, the way it always was when it came to Sasuke. He said it like she'd made unjustified attacks on his intelligence. They weren't twelve anymore, of course they weren't. Naruto had ditched twelve faster than any of them.

She saw the taught line of his arm, the grind of his jaw. "If you stop us, I won't forgive you."

Naruto looked up, stunned. He'd been lost in his anger, and for a moment his face in the flushed sunfall had the openess of a child's. "Sakura-chan."

"You think it's easy to do this?" She continued calmly. "To give up this village? I've fought for Konoha my whole life, I've lived here, my friends and family are here. Everyone I love is here. This is not a decision that's been made lightly."

"Why does it have to boil down to that, to _leaving?_"

"There's nothing _here_ anymore, Naruto."

Naruto looked incensed enough to stand. His anger had the unmistakable stink of desperation, too earnest, too late. "How can you _say_ that? The hospital here would suffer without you, all the people you've helped, you are invaluable - "

She didn't even touch upon his reducing her to a medical asset. If Konoha had wanted to keep her that much they should have made the village more accommodating when it came to the Uchiha. "I can be replaced."

"No, you _can't_." Naruto said, so viciously she nearly dropped her mask.

Sakura's pulse picked up, unspeakably foolish before she was able to treat the impulse with quick thinking self-respect. She kept herself stiff, _you fool, I already have been._

He was on his feet then, palms flat on the table, his brow low and his eyes molten. The light was hitting him directly, pupils were points smaller than they eyes of needles and his iris were flaming gold. If it wasn't for the falling day she'd have thought he'd invoked the Kyuubi.

"Stop," She whispered harshly. "My daughter is outside. I will not damage how she sees you, for whatever it's worth. Don't make a scene."

His face fell. His shoulders too. How quickly the fire came and how quickly the string was cut. Dejection deepened into determined bargaining, with Naruto shaking his head and saying. "I'll let people know about the Uchiha massacre, I'll tell everyone what happened. I'll send the bastard out less, keep him home. I'll do anything, Sakura-chan, so please, don't make me - don't _make_ me - "

"Naruto." Soft, without losing coolness. "I said I won't discuss this with you. Not here, and certainly not now."

"Say you forgive me, first."

"Please drink your lemonade," Sakura sighed instead, "the ice cubes are melting."

"Sakura - "

She growled, "_Naruto_."

And suddenly he was grinning, she'd done something that had amused, had made him happy. Sakura wanted to throw up, Naruto used to be stable ground so long ago, and all he did now was spin her about till she couldn't choose between hating him or – or…Sakura felt her temples ache.

She scowled and gave him her back, turning to the sink with a spike of confused annoyance. It makes the blood in her veins fizzy with fury, but also makes her heart flip at the same time - Naruto hasn't smiled like that in ages and she curses the familiarity of it, the tugging of it. Ages ago it could have diffused an international incident, and now it does nothing but ruin _everything_ \- ruin her anger at him, ruin her poise. Naruto isn't allowed to smile like that, not anymore, not so thoughtlessly - because it isn't thoughtless, it's a weapon.

Her words the other night come back to her like knocks on a door, sudden, unexpected. _I loved you_. She'd said it half-mad, more hatred than anything. But she'd said it still.

Naruto doesn't bring it up, she doesn't know who he's protecting this way. She doesn't know if she wants his tact.

She runs the tap, cups the cool water and splashes it onto her face. Sakura breathes in and cards her fingers back into her hair, unsticking it yet again from the coil of her nape which feels muggier than the monsoon at this point.

"Sakura-chan," Naruto prompts softly.

She turns to him, stifling a beleaguered sigh, "What?"

"The lemonade's pretty good," he says, thumb sweeping around the rim of the glass. Seated. He sounds younger then, a little hesitant with the compliment. It doesn't seem like it was what he meant to say though, not initially.

Sakura's knee-jerk reaction is to warm at the praise, and to ultimately lash out whenever staggered. "Of course it is," she says with a dismissal that verges on haughty before she drags the worn elastic hair tie off her wrist with her teeth.

She collects her hair, teeth around the band. It's a little like herding one soppy-staticy, frizzled mop. She huffs like a wilderbeast, pissed at its difficulty, that the heat has even driven her to this at all. Damn hair. She wishes she was just like Ino-pig, with genetically perfect (non extra-terrestrial color) locks that swoosh in the wind and maintaining sheen even after arm wrestling with death.

Sakura's hair just plain _hates_ her most of the time.

When she manages to get it all in one hand she snaps the hairtie tightly around it, twisting roughly it's not much better but it's off her nape at the very least. Sakura wets her fingers to soothe the heat there.

Naruto's been watching her the whole time. Now he looks softer somehow, his grin warming down, gentler.

Sakura grunts at him. "What?"

"Your hair," he says softly.

"What about it?"

"I expected you to grow it out sometime."

She snorts. "Why would you think that?"

"...just," he shrugged, "It was important to you before. Your long hair."

Sakura rolled her eyes. "Should the Hokage really be worrying about my style-choices?" It's hard to not spit out that that was long ago. _We were twelve_, very long ago. Sakura isn't readying for another argument because it doesn't feel like she ever wins any of those when it comes to Naruto, and she would rather not prolong his stay.

Naruto's mouth does a strange tight-lipped thing, it looks vaguely self-immolating. Sakura pushes that away with all the other things that her brain _does not want_ to interpret, mostly because it doesn't matter, she is tired of it _mattering_ –

Naruto matters so much. Even when he's not being Naruto. In her kitchen, in the absences he has made, that has filled her life with the sort of tender, gnawing ache she can never find the right sort of cure for. Naruto matters when he's betraying her, when he's doing all the wrong things.

He has mattered so much sometimes she feels like she can't breathe around it. Can't think. Can't – can't _function._

She goes through so many extremes with him around; Naruto's always prompted strong reactions from those around him. He is tectonic. Cannot be ignored. But Sakura spins from every end of the spectrum, and it confuses her. It never used to be like that. There are things she believes in, things she wants – and Naruto, Naruto is _there_ – obstacle or reminder, even when she sees him twice every four years. Naruto has never stopped _mattering._

Which makes it infinitely more agonizing that she has.

"You haven't asked me to leave," Naruto reminds her. He is still watching her. Sakura wonders what face she must have been wearing for him to sound so thoughtful.

She draws her spine, internally shrugs herself awake. "I haven't."

"I'll try and come around sometime."

"Please don't," Sakura implores in a wasted exhale, weariness returning abruptly. Just when she'd thought it was done.

Naruto twists his fingers on the table as if to stop himself scrubbing his hands through his hair. He digs into the corner of his mouth and speaks to the furniture. As if he might lose the nerve if he looks at her directly. "When you came to the office a few weeks ago…" He cracks a knuckle, flinching at the sound and laughing, startled by it too, "The truth I didn't say was that I missed you too, Sakura-chan. I've missed," He sobers, unsmiling, "…everything."

Please stop. Sakura thought almost faint, a spinning reel of _Fuck, why. I am too tired_. She just didn't want Naruto to talk anymore. To…stop.

She resisted the impulse to drag her nails across her scalp in vexation. It didn't matter, he hadn't said it then. He was saying it now. Naruto…whether he meant it or not, and she knew in exactly what _capacity_ he meant it, all warm with those token Team Seven days only he remembered as perfect – he'd needed to, they'd _both_ needed to, to get Sasuke-kun back. Sakura had stopped because Team Seven was possibly _the_ most toxic grouping in the entirety of Konoha's history and she'd stopped needing nostalgia as fuel.

With Naruto and Sasuke gone, under her apprenticeship with Tsunade, alone, teamless, the absence of them looked to others like the absence of limbs and Sakura had felt mutilated somehow, like her boys had made a cripple out of her and everyone had known it. She'd seen other teams, interacting, supporting one another and she'd felt the ache of those mutilated, gone limbs with such _pain_. She'd been part of the problem with the Team too, they'd all been, and then Naruto had just ditched – picked up the last puzzle piece (Sasuke) stuffed it awkwardly into the rest of the picture, jammed it until he was satisfied and then _left._

She wondered if nostalgia was all Naruto had. And how it could tell him that anything he'd done – anything he was doing now, with his badly timed tenderness and calculated emotional manipulation, was at all, on any level, _okay._

Only her belief that Naruto wanted what was best for the village, sincerely – no matter which parts of the plan this 'best' required, according to him, misguided prioritization – saved her from turning him away completely.

Her daughter was outside too, with Naruto's doubles. Sakura knew better than to fall completely prey to his words, no matter what concentration of sincerity they might possess, but she did not think a child would be able to see through such tactics so easily.

And Naruto was golden, _golden_. Of course Sarada would trust him, of course anyone would – god, whatever Naruto said to her was nothing but a complication. Another stab at turning her. She remembered his words the night before, saw his unmarred jaw – no sign of her vicious punch had remained. What would have bruised any man ugly for a month had cleared up probably before Naruto had finished his walk back home.

And that was it, wasn't it? She couldn't – she couldn't _touch_ him. She couldn't change him. She couldn't beat him black and blue. She couldn't fight him. Naruto would always be invincible, and it was she shambling along, blustered by the chaos he so easily wrought.

Once upon a time she'd glorified him as some sort of…savior. No better than anyone else had. She'd thought she could help him, rely on him too – but Naruto had never needed her. He didn't need her now.

"I've thought about it," Sakura told him, dull and grey. "and I think you should leave."

Naruto didn't speak. He rose. Sakura watched him, every atom in her keening to react to anything. "I'm not lying."

"I don't care."

Naruto paused. He seemed considering, as if he was chewing on it. Analytically, removed. So certain. "Not that."

Sakura found she didn't have to pretend the coldness, but she amended, as requested. "I mean then, that it no longer matters."

Naruto didn't plead with her again. He looked at her for a while, to receive this truth. There was no smile then, no regret, no fabricated show of grimace. His eyes were the sort of blue to be found in a still ocean, the kind that blows no wind.

Naruto nodded once and swept beneath the door frame, quick but without hurry. Sakura wanted to laugh, the kind of laugh that might dissolve into tears. She wanted to smash a wall open. She kept her back to the window so she would not have to see Naruto leave. Red edges and copper touched, and burning her retinas through like autumn bonfires.

That would involved the same sort of sentiment that Naruto so easily weaponized.

And like him, she no longer had the luxury of more than that.

* * *

tbc

* * *

**.**

**.**

**.**

* * *

**deedee20340 **girl thank you so was written during fanrage, but after the rage abated i'm really taking this as an opportunity to do right by the naruto characters we grew up with while also acknowledging the shitty ending. basically story isn't over, and i'm hoping you see just how much detail i've invested into this separate shitverse to make up for its shittyness. i've thought about it extensively, and this story is definitely going to be one of those long ones. i've never done anything like this before, something that i hope to be very detailed politics/world-wise and you know, writing characters who are actual complex adults (i hope?). i hope you enjoy the ride!

**LordofFigaro** I'm really flattered that you say I've pulled of Naruto's villany well. that's the thing with the Naruto I hope to be writing here. Someone who while motivated by good intentions has also evolved into being pragmatic, who can prioritize which good is the better/worthwile one? he's not evil (never!), but he is definitely more practical. he's definitely an antagonist. so he grew up a bit. became less Naruto, more Hokage? which is his duty. which is understandable.

**iron butterfly** i'm so glad you're enjoying it. i've been thinking about this fic a lot and i'm going to be putting a lot of effort into it. i hope the time-jumping wasn't too disorienting. i'm just doing my best with the ending we were given.

**Sfic** you've raised a good point about the ages and the timeline, I want you to know that I've got it planned very specifically (even though it might seem like i'm jumping about a lot) though I can see how it might confuse anyone. So, at the end of the war sakura is 15. naruto and sasuke go off for shenanigans for one year. Naruto returns, sasuke doesn't. so sakura is 16 when naruto returns. naruto and hinata's courtship takes a whole year before they decide to tie the knot. so sakura is 17 at the time of the wedding, which is also the time when she flees the fuck off to go 'hunt sasuke'. sakura returns to konoha three months after the wedding (nice save, girl after my own heart.) she is almost eighteen by the time she gets permission from Kakashi to go awf. so right about now she's like...three months from eighteen. sarda is born when sakura's eighteen. sarada is eight at the most recent point in the story which makes sakura 26. naruto becomes hokage when sarada is four and sakura's 22. i've realised that by writing this i've possibly confused people more. i'm trying to keep this as close to the manga as possible age-wise, but i can't be assed to look through data books either. i hope that cleared things up a little? if i've plunged you deeper into confusion, forgive me! for the first two or three chapters there'll be a lot of back and forth with the past and present before things finally settle and progress forward. and yes, obviously anyone who's solely picketed NaruSasu into the NO HOMO area is working some serious denial, i mean Kishi's notorious queerbaiting/queercoding is just ridiculous. NaruSasu is definitely touched on. Sasuke is mostly assexual, but the only moments I can conceivably see him getting it on with anyone would be either with Naruto (self explanatory lbr) or Karin (i mean COME ON, IT'S RIGHT THERE) and that's it. also of course Sai has felt attraction to Sakura, it's Sakura. She's fly af.

**Guest** i've never been magnificent before, but thank you! the positive feedback this fic has received is just phenomenal and just so heartening! god, i'm so glad for the affirmation that everyone's in character because i was like - i am so drastic and enraged that people are just not going to be able to conceive what i'm trying to say in light of my bitterness. but the bitterness has abated and i'm really interested in taking this story places. i've got a very serious plot in line. and yes, you know what. i used to ship SasuSaku so hard. so HARD. and then Sakura's character kept taking hits, and it was just making her toxic and forever 12, and Sasuke's behavior began to be so weird and he kept hurting his team and i continued along this line of 'Sasuke, why are you so evil. there's no hope for you' and Sasuke just EXHAUSTED me. because i was looking at him through this narrow scope? now i see everything. don't get me wrong, Sasuke's behavior can be problematic af but he had a point, and you know, it just pisses me off the fact that the tragedy against his family was never really avenged because it was like no Sasuke, you gotta forgive and forget. and in the end Sasuke just looks like this asshole who had to FORGIVE and it was just a cop out by Kishi because he had two chapters left and he couldn't be assed to write about the intense struggle of reconciling the past shit and Sasuke's decision on how to progress into the future. I mean, Sasuke wasn't supposed to be redeemed through Naruto's talk no jutsu, he was supposed to avenge without being made out to be ridiculous for wanting to. Sasuke's struggle is very valid, and the cannon narrative in 'forgiving' him completely disenfranchised him of the right to that struggle? and in the end fuck. for all that i bitched about Sasuke, it took this SHITTY ending for me to be like, hold up. Sasuke had it BAD. Sasuke was treated terribly by Kishi. Sasuke's best team (and ik i'm all Team Seven OT3 gung ho but lbr) was Taka/Hebi. And to have them erased was just blasphemy to me. Poor Sasuke, I mean. Poor Sakura and Poor Sasuke for being paired off together when both of them are obviously toxic for each other romantically and wtf is this shit turning Sasuke into some doujutsu breeding mare and Sakura into some D-oriented housewife. (i have nothing against housewives but wtf this is the girl who trained to become great, to never be left behind, and you shunt her so she can dust your shelves and cook your dinner, aw hell naw. fuck that) just - no. SasuSaku is unhealthy for both parties. and within the space of a few chapters actually made Sakura degress. I mean. that is some TOXIC SHIT to make you actually devolve. idgaf about what anyone else says. Sasuke and Sakura were fucked over bad. I've decided that Sasuke is now my son, and i hope to be forgiven for never wanting to understand him. You're right. Team Seven didn't deserve this hsit. Neither did Taka. Neither did anyone except Hinata obviously - who tbh didn't deserve it either because a lot of people were hoping that Hinata would stop being defined by Naruto and actually evolve. i mean. Neji shouldn't have to have died for this shit man. fuck. the Naruto ending is just bullshit allround no matter how you look at it.

**Kimiss** then you shall have more, my child.

**BlowBlowWinterWind** no one's happy with this ending, not even the people who got their ships. but they're too surprised to stare a gifthorse in the mouth so they have to pretend like they're happy, deep down they know the ending was bullshit, but since their pairings happened they gotta defend it even harder. tbh the ending just didn't resolve anything plotwise and it was basically just a set up for the next cashcow series Kishi's building about the next generation. we were just given hokage naruto with nothing said about his journey, and all the spares were paired. it was all very distasteful. i mean, hitting his kid seemed ridiculous. also fucking skyscrapers and people styling with their Macs like wtf. it doesn't make sense? if there's peace then why the fuck are there even ninja? how are people supporting themselves? it just...does not make...sense? like i aint even mad anymore. it's too ridiculous. it's too bizarre. And yaaaaas, Sakura's self-hatred is apparently what stopped NaruSaku from happening (Kishi said that Sakura would be a terrible person if she took Naruto away from Hinata, despite having feelings for him) and it's a lot of what's held her back, but also pushed her forward? Her self-hatred is a huge element of this fic. and it evolves too. how that self-hatred comes with a self awareness, an acknowledgment of her flaws, and i'm glad you appreciate that. i don't want sakura holding back. **Guest **Aw, thank you! Not the best maybe, but one of the few good ones? thank you!

**DemonicGirl111** yes, the rage is very important. I think Sakura doesn't allow herself to get angry enough often, and i think she should get angry, it's the only way of forging forward. her rage is very important. thank you so much. i thought i might seem dramatic at times.

**Birdmatt** No one gets off easy in this fic tbh. Naruto became a jerk. man. what a tragedy. Yes, I decided that Sakura and Sasuke became friends. I let them fuck one time to get the SasuSaku out of their system the way someone gets their stomach pumped. It was unfair of Kishi to make Team Seven so dysfunctional, and even if it's OOC for Sasuke and Sakura to suddenly tolerate each other let alone be pleasant, or EVEN RAISE A CHILD TOGETHER I MEAN WHAT WERE YOU SMOKING, KISHI. So i decided fuck it. Sakura and Sasuke are in the same boat over being in love with Naruto who has ultimately deserted the both of them, and being failed by their 'saviour'. and i decided if Kishi's going to force spawn on them might as well have them platonically pair up as an unconventional unmarried platonic bro partnership to raise said spawn. so Sasuke and Sakura and Sarada live together as a relatively happy family, but no romo. i feel that they require a respectful distance between them, and that their relationship should be more about respect now. so i've tried to put Sakura and Sasuke in a place where they are no longer blind to each other, because SasuSaku made Sakura blind and Kishi's bad writing made Sasuke too toxic to care about anyone but Naruto (and while NaruSasu is a beautiful relationship Kishi could have handled it better. At least NaruSasu fans own their problematic shit and don't just ignore it.) - so I wanted what the relationship in cannon could never allow between Sasuke and Sakura - some modicum of fucking respect. And you're right about Naruto, of course he wants something only when he can't have it. that's basically what he became after that ending lbr. there's nothing left for sasuke in konoha anymore - he only came there because Naruto convinced him that it was the best place to raise (or not raise, i mean, he's NEVER there) Sarada. Frankly, Konoha has always made Sasuke unhappy. His responsibilites elsewhere prompt him away from the village - Sasuke has been Naruto's dog for way to long, serving this penance for the friendship Sasuke blamed himself for failing - but after it becomes apparent that that friendship is no longer the same Sasuke decides the leaving is best. Also the ideal village he believed in cannot exist as Konoha. He leaves for Sarada too. They need a fresh start. Sakura is loyal to Sarada and Sasuke, and she'll leave too. Completely true. Konoha isn't a place to raise an Uchiha child. Sakura knows whats best for her daughter and deserves a fresh start too. Naruto is married with children like you said. Haha, prepare for complications. This isn't a fic where Naruto forgets himself and passionately throws himself into Sakura/Sasuke's bed in a fit of adulterous stupidity - Naruto's a grown man, steadier, less impulse, more sense. So I hope no one's looking for some senseless hook-up over here. Remember, Naruto's sturdier than that. I've read a lot of fic where Sakura and Naruto get under the influence and bang, and Naruto's already dumb enough as it is, I don't want him to seem like even more scummy than he already is. So, no, nothing easy like that. As much as I enjoy those heated affair fics I've got something more serious brewing here than a breach of marital trust. And hopefully more intense than a brief hookup. this isn't a PAIRING fic (though romance features heavily) but a fic about loyalty, bonds, growing up, sacrifice. All the toxic stuff that cannon skirted around. Also a lot of politics here. That I hope to write somewhat passably? We'll see. NO WAY, KARIN MEANT MORE TO SASUKE THAN A FLING. AND I HOPE TO SHOW THAT CONSISTENTLY THROUGHOUT THIS FIC. So any Karin haters or slut shamers can just gtfo right now. Not here for that. While I will occasionaly throw MAJOR shade at some characters (look out Hinata. I'm not even playing. there were just as many iffy things about Hinata's character as there were about Sakura, even more) don't expect any of that lame ass bashing here. And tbh Karin is my Queen? She fought a war IN HERE PAJAMAS. BITCH YOUR FAVES COULD NEVER.

**Moles **I've never seen that siad about my writing before and I'm so flattered. I wanted the work to both be intense and yet occasionally, tragically funny. Sort of frozen at hysteria here, angst punctuated with ridiculousness. I'm glad you enjoyed it, and as for deserving more faves, I'm currently at 21 and trying to bump that up! I'm just glad people can empathise with what I'm writing and trying to redeem Sakura and everyone else as best as I can. Sakura's self hatred is SO IMPORTANT to this fic. And yes, omg tell me about it, Sasuke is socially inept and I'm tired of people painting him as this suave, he of few, but genius conversation when Sasuke is actually such trash when it comes to acting like an actual decent human being? Not that he isn't a good person, but he IS awkward and rather hopeless. Sasuke's not witty in cannon, he's just MEAN. like, he can't help it. He is so useless with people that I marvel at how people can write him as some dark, incredibly rogueish knight who is as you say 'JUST BORED BY IT ALL'. Plz, I'll take my Sasuke the way I like him which is; useless at people. Thank you for enjoying it and finiding it believable. I expected to get laughed off ffnet for this fic and for all matters could not have cared less if I was, but warm praise is so nice to see. thank you. As for how I would have ended Naruto? tbh I wouldn't have ended it. Naruto's journey was barely starting. I think Kishi just got lazy. However, if I was to 'end' it in fic I'd certainly have written about the adventures of Naruto and ended it with Naruto as Hokage, Sasuke as his ANBU right hand and Sakura as his diplomatic, medical left. I mean, Team Seven in all their glory. As for pairings as much as I shipped NaruSaku anything could have gone? NaruSasu obviously. I have a soft spot for SasuNaruSaku AU where Sakura and Sasuke decide to play splitsies and involved an OT3 where Sasuke and Sakura are completely romantically disinterested in each other and only care about Naruto but are mature enough to love eachother in a no romo way and share Naruto because in the end, it isn't Sasuke who brought Team Seven together and who Sasuke and Sakura most relied on. It was Naruto, that central, beating heart. Naruto who loves both of them, differently, but has never stopped loving them. And I'm rambling about a cool OT3 in this fic when I should probably be gettinf round to finishing chapter 3 haha.

**Sasu-Cakes137** Thank you so much. It makes me so happy that people like Sakura here. I'm trying to do right by her without idolizing her, which is a mistake many people make. Sakura's a very frustrated character in this fic, and half of that is projecting my rage, and the other is just...loving her? I loved Sakura, flaws and all. She was my first love. I want to do right by her.

**Guest who sent me hate **Received unoriginal anon hate; Achievement unlocked. aLSO THANKS A BUNCH FOR ADDING TO MY REVIEW COUNT. Check my profile for my tumblr in case you wanna hit me up with your revelations there. lol hun i love you, stay pressed.

**Refraction of Light** Can anyone name ONE TIME in cannon where Sasuke acted like a heterosexual. ONE TIME GUYS. JUST ONE TIME. PLZ SHOW ME. I WILL PAY MONEY TO SEE THIS. SHOW ME. ANYONE. PLZ. Haha, you're right. Naruto being straight isn't hard to believe (and being more than that too is believable but not more than Sasuke being completely not is) - Sasuke is either homosexual or assexual in cannon. I've painted him here as Demisexual, i.e someone who does not feel sexual attraction until they have a strong emotional attraction to someone. i've seen some people defend the ending with the 'traditionalist japanese values' but like you, I also thought it was bogus. I mean. what the fuck actually. and that is the saddest thing isn't it? That Naruto wasn't half as incorruptible as we thought. Kishi did that. So for a story about fantasy ninjas who don't actually behave with the discretion the term 'ninja' implies trying to add some realism in the form of edgy 'traditional japanese values' just seems so cheap and not edgy at all. fuck you kishi, go sit in a corner and regret what you've done. because we're going to remind you of it for FOREVER. Beyond the grave. FOREVERRRRR.

**Sook03** YAAAAAAS. EVERYTHING SAKURA WANTED WAS TAKEN AWAY FROM HER. AND DID THE BITCH COMPLAIN. NOPE. NOT ONCE. And she has persevered. SHE WILL PERSEVERE. Sakura's time to kick ass is LOOOOOONG OVERDUE. BELIEVE ME.

**The clumsy one** Thank you, I hope you enjoyed this chapter too.

**Babette** Thanks for enjoying the fic! Though I should warn you again that the SasuSaku here is completely platonic. and that Sasuke and Sakura will not be hooking up again. Think of them as bros here. Obviously not as broriffic as NaruSasu (I mean, nothing can come close to the love those two have for each other, so. much. homo) but bro-enough to respect each other and be loyal to their friendship. I'm glad you enjoyed the story! The time skips ARE confusing and I've tried to address that in one of the replies above, so I hope that helped! Twice! I'M SO HAPPY. PLZ CONTINUE WITH US ON THIS JOURNEY!


	3. Chapter 3

AN: Ok. I'm going to break my aloof, educated persona for a bit and go full on crey author's note because someone PM'd me to complain (make a concerned observation) about how my fic is framed in such a way that Sakura is being biased towards Naruto.

1) I love you that is so sweet, look i'm not being sarcastic for real u were really nice with how u worded it, i rally appreciate it. thank you for bringing your worries to my attention as it alerts me that this must be what a lot of readers must have thought so too and thus what has probably made (and does make) them liable not to give this story a chance because they are reasonable people who don't want to suffer through yet _another_ character bashing fic, so now i get to acknowledge this here and beg you guys not to think this is something that should discourage you BECAUSE I HAVE A PLAN

2) Naruto has done legitimately hurtful shit even in his inaction, even when he doesn't mean to. SAKURA IS NO ANGEL EITHER, like the relationship crumbling isn't just naruto's fault and she is also on some level very aware of this, i don't know how damn obvious i need to be. ALSO LOOK, I AM TRYING TO REDEEM SASUKE BUT HE'S STILL ALWAYS GONNA BE THAT USELESS EMO KID AT HEART TO ME WHO IS GIVEN TO JUST AS MANY TERRIBLE LIFE DECISIONS AS HIS TEAMMATES. LIKE.

3) Sakura is petty as fuck like I'm not even dancing around that. THIS WHOLE FIC IS ABOUT SAKURA BEING PETTY AND ALSO BEING STRONG, THAT IS THE DUALITY HERE. OF HER BEING. A. DAMN. HUMAN. BEING.

4) this story has SO FAR been written ENTIRELY in _SAKURA'S POV_, like? you think her petty ass is only ever being rational here? YOU THINK SHE'S RELIABLE? hahahHAHAHAHAHAHAHOHMYGODDDDD

5) so yes, while Sakura sometimes has a very good point _some times_ and is very entitled to most of her hurts, keep in mind that SAKURA _IS_ BIASED AS _FUCK_. I AM WRITING HER THAT WAY. SHE IS SUPPOSED TO BE. THIS IS A CLUMSY, HEAVY-HANDED SPIN ON _UNRELIABLE NARRATING _THAT HAS MANAGED TO FLY OVER SO MANY SWEET PEOPLE'S HEADS. SO. DON'T THINK I DON'T _KNOW_. DON'T THINK I'M JUST HERE TRYING TO MAKE MY GIRL A SPESHAL UNICORN WHO CAN DO NO WRONG. I HATE THAT SHIT. GET THAT AWAY FROM ME. but see that's the whole problem when it comes to writing a sakura fic, she has so many haters and so many stans, and BOTH can be equally irrational. if i make sakura petty i'm a self-hating feminist, but if i give her a minor power up i'm suddenly a brainless MARY-SUE LOVER LIVING VIACRIOUSLY THROUGH HER BECAUSE GIVING SAKURA ANY ATTEMPT TO SHOW STRENGTH OR GROWTH INVOLVES A SUSPENSION OF BELIEF SO _GREAT_ IT OBVIOUSLY MEANS I'M PREPPING A STORY THAT'S GOING TO CONCLUDE IN HER PUSSY-WHIPPING THE WHOLE OF THE (MYSTERIOUSLY ALIVE) AKATSUKI. (which no shame, i actually do enjoy those fics LIKE THE TALENT)WHAT I MEAN TO SAY IS THAT IT IS DIFFICULT TO PROPERLY REACH A BALANCE HERE THAT MAKES EVERYONE HAPPY. SO IF UR HAPPY I'M HAPPY. BUT IF UR GONNA WHINE BECAUSE I'M AWFUL AT WRITING WHAT UR NOT PAYING ME TO WRITE...THEN LOL STAY PRESSED I LOVE U.

THE WHOLE REASON WE (OR I DO ANYWAY) LOVE SAKURA IS BECAUSE SHE IS LITERALLY THE EMBODIMENT OF ALL THE STUPIDITY AND SELFISHNESS AND PETTINESS WE ARE SO WELL VERSED IN OURSELVES? SHE VERY CLEARLY STRUGGLES TO BE A GOOD PERSON AND ISN'T ALWAYS SUCCESSFUL? JUST AS EVERYONE ELSE DOES? LIKE? U THINK I'M GONNA DRAG NARUTO FOR THE WHOLE OF THIS FIC AND ACT LIKE HE DIDN'T HAVE _REASONS_ FOR DOING ALL THAT HE DID? YOU GUYS THINK I'M KISHI 2.0 AND INCAPABLE OF FULLY ARTICULATING AND PROVIDING PROPER REASONING ABOUT MOTIVE BEHIND ACTION OR PLOT DECISIONS? LIKE NARUTO'S PERCEIVED ASSHOLY BEHAVIOUR HERE IS JUST LIKE ITACHI'S SUDDEN TURN AS A SECRET GOOD GUY, MANIFESTING ITSELF WITH ABSOLUTELY NO REASONING OR FORETHOUGHT? LIKE? AN ASSPULL? THE WHOLE REASON I _WROTE_ THIS FIC IS TO TRY AND HANDLE SOME OF THIS AWFUL LAZY FUCKERY KISHI DISPLAYED WITH SO MANY OF HIS PLOTS AND HIS CHARACTEDS? THIS IS MY PERSONAL THERAPY. YOU GUYS THINK I'M INTERESTED IN PLAYING U ALL LIKE THAT? I PLAY YOU, I PLAY MYSELF. Also for real, I love ur support all of you, it's really flattering but I'm honestly just writing this fic for the fun of it, so I welcome constructive criticism any time and I love love LOVE to hear from all of you but I'm not gonna be bugging if someone decides i'm besmirching the holy integrity of the naruto series. i'm probably gonna make a lot of mistakes narratively. i might even contradict myself (NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES I CAN SCAN MY FIC WITH MY EYES, I AM BUT ONE BEING) but i'm trying to keep to the game plan and have some _fun_. if i take yall too seriously i'm just going to be pandering and all of you will just be bored as hell should i do that shit. just. _enjoy the ride._ don't be_ too_ invested in this fic. like it's literally been a year since i updated (BECAUSE OF LEGITIMITE REAL LIFE BULLSHIT LIKE I HAVE NEVER FACED SUCH DRAMA IN MY LIFE EVER I WON'T EVEN TALK ABOUT IT HERE BUT JUST TRUST ME, ASTAGHFIRULLAH FOR REAL MAY GOD NEVER INTEND THIS SHIT TO HAPPEN TO ME AGAIN) so just relax. the more open minded u are the more ur gonna enjoy this bullshit. i promise. we can laugh cry weep and rant together, BUT DON'T EXPECT ME TO BE CAPABLE OF PERFORMING SOME GENRE DEFINING/DEFYING MIRACLE WITH THIS SHIT. I'M SO FLATTERED BY YALL BEING 'THIS IS THE BEST FIC EVER' AND I'VE BEEN CRYING TENDER TEARS AT WHAT IS OBVIOUSLY A HUGE MISTAKEN BOUT OF MISPLACED TRUST IN MY NON-EXISTENT ABILITIES. THAT'S A LOT OF EXPECTATION, WE'RE JUST GONNA DISSAPOINT EACH OTHER, I PROMISE. SO JUST CHILL OUT. BE SMOOTH. BE COOL. THIS IS WHY I DON'T DO A/Ns becuase i never MAKE ANY DAMN SENSE

ALSO returning to the bias issue - LITERALLY SAKURA DRAGS HERSELF 24/7 AND I HOPED THAT PETTY SELF-HATRED WAS AMUSING AND SINCERE ENOUGH TO OFFSET HER BITTERNESS (WHICH SHE ALREADY ACKNOWLEDGES AS AWFUL)? Like I wanted this to be a subtle revelation as the story progressed that all these characters are actually more than what other characters think they are, so you guys can see that (in time) Naruto isn't as much of the SATAN Sakura sometimes feels (in her frequent moments of petty-ass hurt, rage and trademark self-depriciation) he is, but damn once I realized that this is actually _keeping_ people from reading this story i had to clear the air. i had to drop the anvil. the piano. EVERY THING. like damn i wanted to be a cool writer playing with your minds and pretend to inch up on u all subtle with themes about how damn duplicitous everyone actually is BUT NOW I HAVE TO REVEAL MYSELF. NARUTO HAS HIS REASONS, JUST AS SAKURA HAS HERS. LIKE WHAT KIND OF VILLAIN DO YOU THINK I MEAN HIM TO BE? LIKE U THINK I SEE HIM AS SOME MOUSTACHE TWIRLING HACK? DO YOU THINK I'M DELIBERATELY INTENDING TO MAKE HIM _THAT_ ONE DIMENSIONAL? HE'S NOT EVIL, HE JUST _HAPPENS_ TO BE A PRIMARY ANTAGONIST? EVEN A GOOD-WILLED ONE? HE'S NOT EVEN GOING TO BE _ONLY_ ANTAGONIST? LOL EVERYONE IS COMING FOR EVERYONE'S ASS. THE WHOLE POINT OF AN ANTAGONIST IS TO OPPOSE THE PROTAGONIST? AND BRING THAT TENSION? SAKURA'S OPINION OF HIM IS A LOT LESS RATIONAL SOMETIMES? LIKE? YOU GUYS _KNOW_ WHAT I'M TRYING TO DO RIGHT? SO HELP ME GOD - PLEASE TELL ME YOU _GET_ WHAT I'M TRYING TO DO BECAUSE THERE HAS BEEN SOME _GRIEVOUS MISUNDERSTANDING_ HERE IF U THINK ANYONE IN THIS FIC IS SAFE FROM BEING ROASTED WITHIN AN INCH OF THEIR LIVES? I ALREADY WARNED U THAT NONE OF UR FAVES (OR MINE) ARE SAFE. WHAT THE FUCK GUYS. TRUST ME. TRUST MEEEEEEE. LIKE I DRAG SAKURA WITH EVERY DAMN SENTENCE AND JUST BECAUSE I'M BEING FUNNY ABOUT IT YOU THINK SHE'S CHARMING AND THAT SOMEHOW BEING PETTY WHILE BEING CHARMING EXCUSES ANY SHITTY BEHAVIOR SHE MAY BE PRONE TO? IT DOESN'T MEAN I'M STILL NOT DRAGGING HER ? BECAUSE I DO. I AM. I HAVE? I ALWAYS WILL? LIKE I'VE MADE NOTHING BUT TERRIBLE SHIT HAPPEN TO HER SO FAR? AND PUT HER IN LITERALLY EVERY EMBARRASSING AND AWKWARD SITUATION I POSSIBLY CAN, AND WE ALL LAUGH BECAUSE COMIC RELIEF RIGHT? BUT THE TRUTH IS THAT THIS IS MY ELEMENT. LOL IT'S GONNA KEEP COMING FOR HER. AND MORE TERRIBLE SHIT IS GONNA HAPPEN TO EVERYBODY TOO? LIKE IT'S NOT ALL GONNA BE DOOM AND GLOOM BUT I HAVE TO BE DRAMATIC WHEN I'M PUTTING THIS POINT ACROSS SO IDK THAT'S HOW IT MIGHT BE COMING ACROSS. LIKE WHAT ELSE DO I GOTTA DO TO MAKE U PEOPLE BELIEVE. DAMN. I JUST WANT TO RESTORE SOME SEMBLANCE OF DIGNITY TO HER EVEN AS I SOMEHOW END UP WRITING HER IN WAYS WHERE SHE CONTINUALLY SABOTAGES HERSELF, SOMETIMES SHE GETS IT RIGHT? LOL GUYS I LOVE MY GIRL. BUT I'M NOT GOING TO PRETEND SHE SHITS RAINBOWS. DAMN. DAMN. GUYS. FOR REAL.

Another note: the delay. you'll notice some clumsiness with the hospital scene below, that's because I wrote the scene perfectly the first time and then MY TRASH COMPUTER SELF-DESTRUCTED AND MY FAULTY GARBAGE DISPOSAL OF A PERSONAL LIFE FOLLOWED SUIT. I was lucky to salvage the stuff before that scene and I wept and I wrote and rewrote the hospital scene and most of this shit about _seventy times_ and it still would not get as good as it originally was. so some of you might shake ur heads at this chapter but i was so stired of tweaking it around, i knew if i didn't put it out there ASAP i was just gonna flip out and start doing murder. so. yes. look, i'm a confident writer and i'm not here for fake-humbleness for the sake of inviting some crooning praise because of some weird ego thirstiness, i am straight up telling you i know this chapter isn't my best (lol it won't be my worst wink wink MORE TRASH IS TO COME). but i haven't updated in ages and i resent the idea of any of you thinking i wouldn't come back to this like how unrealiable do you think i am come on man come ON.

I also try to do whatever research i can do but i'm lazy and uninvested in adhering to every single detailed rule of a universe that ended up betraying me anyway, so I'm mostly saving time by making stuff up where I can't _figure_ stuff out. so we're flying by the seat of our pants in so much as adhering to the nitty-gritty rules of whatever cannon Kishi _didnt_ halfass. look. i'm always gonna be bitter. don't even come at me with that but _oh, kishi gave u naruto, ur so disrespectful _BULLSHIT OR ALL "u didn't even pay for that shit."

_ damn straight i didn't pay for **any** of that shit._ i literally live in the buttcrack of some far-flung continent like u think i have access to manga that i can legally purchase? we just got amazon YESTERDAY, aint noboy gonna wait all that damn time. so yall can get off ur weird ass thrones about paying kishi. u should be grateful i didn't pay kishi beyond purchasing two legal copies when i was abroad during a fit of absurd nostalgia. u should be grateful i instead mostly lived off online scans like a rat because if i'd paid more than you did or my far-flung brethren for that matter...you think this man would be confident enough to appear in public again? YOU CAN'T MAKE ME PAY MONEY FOR YOU TO DO THIS SHIT TO ME, IF I PAID MONEY FOR YOU REST ASSURED I'M COMING FOR UR ASS IN PUBLIC. FUCK WRITNG PETTY ASS FANFICTION. I'M ALREADY DOING THAT FOR FREE.

I've also mentioned i've been embroilled in some serious drama. i've been depressed, my hair has been falling out from stress, i am a machine that's been running on exasperated rage for the past year. ur reviews really warmed the cockles of my slimy heart, this troll was so touched. literally, this meant so much to me during my awful problems, ur enthusiasm and ur generosity, it was good to read. thank you...and dont' worry about me, i'm not soliciting observation or sympathy for my lame ass excuses, i'm just giving u an explanation in as vague terms as i can get away with.

i can't reply to each and every one of ur reviews like i did previously because DAMN YOU GUYS I DON'T WANNA SOUND LIKE I'M COMPLAINING BUT THE OUTPOUR OF LOVE AND THE FEEDBACK HAS BEEN SO WILD AND CRAZY AND MASSIVE THAT I CAN'T EVEN DIRECTLY ADDRESS EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU. I WANT TO AND I WILL TRY TO IN THE NEXT CHAPTERS BUT PLEASE forgive me when i say i'm really sorry i can't get back to all of you right now, getting time aside to EVEN post this dumpster fire of a chapter (and its dumpster fire AN) was hard enough, so i hope it's okay for now. i'm still sorting through my real life problemos but i'm better now so i'll have more time to update later, i'm not gonna dissapear for that long again. so i hope that eases any sting i might have (un)intentionally caused? i feel like this AN is going to lose me some of my readers coz i've just revealed myself as an actual crazy person with no chill. because i apparently wasn't already clear about that in the beginning. now you know.

okay shit. that AN was long. i promise u no more long AN's. i just had to clear the air there and felt anyone who was holding out on an update for this long deserves some kind of explanation. so there. i bet u wish i'd explain a lot less, BUT IT'S TOO DAMN LATE YOU WOKE THE CRAZY.

warning, exposition. so much. exposition. i am trying hard to be as natural about placing exposition as possible. just bear with me. APPRECIATE MY CLUSMY EFFORTS WITH THE OPEN-HEARTED GENUINE LOVE OF A MOTHER ACCEPTING HER TODDLERS CARDBOARD SOGGY VALENTINE THEY MADE IN PLAYGROUP. I TRY.

* * *

.

.

.

Her mornings held a routine. Chakra exercises focused on renewing her body's system, a concentration on getting good circulation going before a quick, thorough readjustment of her body makeup to unstart whatever aging process had been allowed to happen the day before.

Getting rid of cell waste like lipofuscin in the nerve and heart muscle cells these days now only required the mere pass of her glowing hand, Sakura rebolstered her immune system and was done before she went down to make breakfast. The rejuvenation of collagen, the dissolution of any free radicals in the blood so that they became harmless components of white cells…she managed to spot any stray bodies or signs that could pose a problem, preventing anything disrupting her cell functions. By the time Sarada was four Sakura had already been able to monitor her own immune system to the point where she could keep the optimum level of antibodies being produced and maintain bone density blindfolded.

The examination was thorough and the repair process that used to take her two hours when she first started out panned out to twenty minutes. When Sarada began her schooling, Sakura's managed cut that time down to five.

Sakura's prebusent vanity had been intense and under the tutelage of Tsunade (and bearing the guilt of Sasuke's departure, her failure as a teammate) Sakura had, at the time, delegated girlishness as an unnecessary frivolity.

Ino still viciously reminds her of the choppy haircut over the meals they share once in a while, grudgingly saying that the only thing about Sakura's get up that didn't make her want to _tear out her own eyeballs_ were the boots that _Ino_ had helped her pick out –

Which she didn't. Sakura spotted that number _first. _So you fucking _wish_, Pig.

Sakura had thusly foregone the dab of lipgloss for the few seconds extra sleep she could scrounge before she could fling herself out of bed at the buttcrack of dawn and arrive at the training grounds so Tsunade could beat the crap out of her. Twelve to fifteen, Sakura had been unable to properly allow herself to take more than perfunctory interest in her appearance. Apart from making sure everything she was wearing was symmetrical and her hair was (sometimes) combed…Well. When she slashed her hair off in the forest of death she'd understood how ineffectual girlishness was.

_Adult_ Sakura understood that she had been wrong. Waiting for Naruto to come back so they could launch themselves after dragging Sasuke back had taken a toll on her, she had felt guilty whenever she looked into a shop display at a pretty dress or was accosted by saleswomen with cosmetic trials. She had still bemoaned her teeny bossom – _god, did people still even use that word?_ – during her time under Tsunade she could _feel _herself getting a complex about it, and her young teen-self _had_ still envied Ino's ability to marry beauty and efficiency at once, and her current self rather still _did_, but it had taken a while before Sakura allowed herself to realize that it was _okay _to want to take pride in your appearance again, to want to be attractive, to _feel_ attractive.

And though a lot of Sakura's reluctance to smack on some mascara or attempt to diet stemmed from a fear that she might be reverting to the weaker ninja she'd been when she was younger – someone who'd let her rather shallow feelings for a _boy_ dictate her growth – her abandonment of beauty also had to do with less complicated, less angsty things like _laziness _and the fact that after sweating through grueling exercises and swinging through rivers of patients like it was the apocalypse any attempt to beautify herself would not change what Sakura looked like at the end of the day; black and blue, and like a super gross, super sweaty, super irritated _zombie._

Eventually, Sakura began to care. When Naruto came back she'd wanted to seem womanly, like, it would have been nice for him to have given her a goddamn compliment. Not like she'd _liked_ him or anything. Naruto actually _meant_ stuff like that, but because her female peers would be more than like to notice _that _much more that Sakura had No Pride as a Woman enough to bother with not being ugly as fuck. Sakura had stared in the mirror the day after he came back to the village and noticed that her lips were all chapped and ew _gross _and then –

And _then! _She got Sai handed over to her on the Team, so on top of the emotional baggage she realized she actually had _boys_ on her team again, which was something new after three years of being surrounded by tough, uncompromising bad ass ladies, and then Ino made a nasty comment, grunting as she filed her nails at the counter instead of paying attention to the register like she was_ supposed_ to be doing, asking if it would kill Sakura to buy a tube of gloss and _ugh_ –

Ugh.

Adult Sakura's vanity was under control, she liked to look good for herself. She definitely didn't put on lipstick so _Sasuke_ could look up from sharpening his weaponry at the kitchen table like she'd told him to never on-the-pain-of-_death_ do again, and suddenly pretend that he was a heterosexual.

Sakura had managed to get by, being able to look at herself in the mirror and give herself her own compliments. She took care of her fitness and cracked open her cupboard for a racy dress once in a while when she felt like it. Vanity had gone through its evolution just as Sakura had. Sakura didn't feel as guilty for a bottle of perfume, or a pretty shade of green – she didn't go _crazy_ in the cosmetics aisle or anything, and her dresser's make-up collection was rather sparse and utilitarian (god, shut _up_, Ino) , but Sakura could look herself in the mirror and adjust her appearance without beating herself up about being a fraud or sacrificing her strength.

And like, Tsunade-shishou certainly didn't _slave_ away at the vanity but the henge came with eyeshadow palette attached apparently, so. Sakura wasn't a fan of huge adjustments when it came to beautifying herself, it just took too much time, but she didn't _hate_ herself about it, which was nice. She already had lots of other stuff to hate herself about, so tiny tiddies or not, Sakura worked with what she had and didn't totally fail.

So vanity. Tsunade's employment of the henge, which was a chakra consuming, rather complicated illusion, was different from Sakura's technique. For one, the Technique™ could not be practiced on others because it required a deeply personal understanding of the body which only the individual it belonged to could properly master (and with excellent chakra control and above and beyond understanding of one's own physiology and medical chakra). Sakura kept her breakthroughs to herself with the added inclusion of Tsunade and Shizune and no one else.

It was not kept a highly guarded secret because Sakura was in anyway modest or humble – LOL – about this advancement. It was kept a secret because she didn't feel like adding her own two cents in a world that was at one time invaded by crazy evil nin who had also – _get this_ – been resurrected with sketchy immortal justu by even sketchier immortal Uchihas.

Sakura had shared the process with the Fifth and Shizune. The process could not _reverse_ the aging process, but simply modulated it, controlling its rate – Sakura could grind the clock to nothing, but she could not wind it back.

Story of her life, but okay.

While an accomplishment, Sakura's silence on the matter had less to do with modesty and more to do with having the foresight of not adding to the restoration, resurrection jutsus already floating about the ninja world (in the least discrete - and alarmingly accessible, _considering_ \- manner possible) for just any mad hack to utilize for _evil._

Also, she expected she would feel vicious satisfaction somewhere along the line, once Sasuke sprouted grey hairs or wrinkles and Sakura remained spring fresh and vivaciously young. Figured, she'd need eighty years before she could tentatively attempt to claim she was _ever_ going to be at _some point_, prettier than Sasuke.

However, as reiterated before, the process had less to do with vanity and more to do with prolonging her life span. Sakura wasn't planning on kicking the bucket in eighty years, she was interested in seeing more than that. Sakura could teach the exercise only to someone whose chakra control she fully trusted, because while the procedure only took a small amount of chakra, it was S-grade in complexity and required a complete, highly intensive understanding of one's own body, and medical chakra. In time she hoped she might be able to teach Sarada enough that Sarada would know how to approach doing it herself.

To this effect Sakura had been able to maintain a youthful appearance, and its vitality. However, Sakura had never had interest in remaining a baby faced seventeen year old forever, so she tweaked around, allowed a little aging, to avoid suspicion, to actually look like a woman her age.

Sakura could look twenty-two forever if she chose.

After the exercise each morning, Sakura could wake Sarada with tickling, herd her into the shower, and then proceed downstairs to make breakfast. If Sasuke was home then he'd already have come out of his room to get it started (incinerated) and breakfast would then usually be comprised of smoke singed pancakes, which was the only thing apart from tomato onigiri and a few other dishes which Sasuke knew how not to completely cremate.

Sasuke was an arsonist and it showed.

Sarada would come down, they would baptize said arson by eating it. Chit chat about her classes, work, make snide comments about Sasuke's aforementioned arson and by the time they were done Sakura would walk her favorite brat to the academy and then zip off to the hospital for work. If Sasuke was there then he made a point to take Sarada himself. Overall, Sakura found she could call them a happy family even if they made a somewhat unconventional picture of domestic happiness.

Sakura worked at the hospital, overseeing the new research, coming through with new operational techniques for immediate field care, and when either of them actually remembered to eat Shizune and Sakura would head to the cafeteria.

Shizune had been the Head Medic since Tsunade decided to go off chasing her elusive youth abroad after handing over the hat to Kakashi or _whatever_. It was nice talking to an adult who was mature, independent and respectable – an adult who was punctual and uncondescending, an adult who wanted to talk about rational stuff ohmy_god_. Basically, Shizune was professional, friendly, all those things she'd always been since Sakura had first met her. It was grounding.

The two kunoichi would cover progress and new developments over terrible coffee, Shizune still heading the poisons unit ontop of her other administrational duties and Sakura handling major surgery. In Tsunade's absence the two held down the fort. They would go over everything from intern training to changes to the budget, to the introduction of new herbs to the hospital's stock.

Sakura would leave the hospital at reasonable hours. She had found out that having a young un' meant people kept forcing her not to take the graveyard shifts. Sakura would pick up Sarada if Sasuke hadn't already, or make dinner if Sasuke hadn't already massacred it. Sometimes she got a back rub, and Sarada would chatter about school as they caught the tail end of this luridly _ridiculous _soap opera that came on every evening, keeping them up to date on the torrid love affair between a palace maid and a prince who mother and daughter immediately spotted as a jerkwad, or _fuck boy_, as Sarada had pointed out.

"Fuck boy," Sakura pronounced thoughtfully, experimentally, this new word. She nodded approvingly, "I like it."

Then she'd made Sarada sweep the roof for being a potty mouth.

"You're a potty mouth!"

"Damn it," Sakura had sighed. "I am."

That Saturday Shikamaru had passed by their compound on his way through the forest to see his view of sky interrupted by the sight of mother and daughter determinedly whacking brooms across the rooftop. Dead leaves hurricaned through the air, littering his hair. He had closed his eyes. Breathed deep - and then left before he could bear the_ inconvenience_ of being _noticed._

The rare times Sasuke was home Sakura could afford to stay at the hospital till the late hours, prolonging her shift felt better knowing that Sarada (who kept whining that she was old enough to take care of herself, _mom_) had someone home while Sakura was at work. On those nights, no matter the hour, Sakura would always come back to the fam and takeout, (thank _god_. Sasuke grew up an orphan but the only things he knew how to make were onigiri, and a special tomato curry. And of course, sometimes, pancakes), and it was _nice._

The business of it, the wrapping up at the evening. It didn't give her much times to miss the old days. But if she was honest, Sakura didn't need an awful lot of time for her mind to instinctively pounce on the past, tugged along by the violent rush of nostalgia for days lost and long gone. Longing would ambush her throughout the day, mid-task, mid-rest. Some nights she could not sleep, cicada-sweet summer nights, perfect for rest, she would lie awake, eyes too dry for tears, the pit of her chest scraped empty, a dull hurt.

Apart from _that_ enduring existential angst, Sakura was always ready for an emergency. She could be called at any hour of the night. Especially in the case of an ANBU team returning. Those were the busiest nights. Sakura could stay on her feet for over eighteen hours at a time.

Shizune had put her foot down once new interns enrolled into the new combat trained medic teaching program they'd sketched out together, and told – not very nicely – Sakura that since there were more hands on deck there was no reason for her not to have some days off. Sakura had initially grumbled about the free Saturdays and Sundays, but it was nice to have some off time to spend with her kid and with Sasuke (who was tolerable when he wasn't Hamlet-ing all over the place), Shizune had assured her that should ever a circumstance arise during those days when she was _truly _needed then Shizune wouldn't wait a heartbeat before calling for her.

Which of course occurred just as she was washing the dishes. Sakura called out to Sarada as she flashed through hand signs to activate the body displacement seals Shizune had placed in the ICU for critical injury surgeons. She arrived in the blinding white lobby with soap suds still gleaming on her elbows. It was earlier than midnight which had been the expected return time, which meant something had gone well, or something had gone terribly, terribly wrong. Sakura had been right about the tricky ANBU retrieval mission after all.

When she was extracting poison of category one on the acute toxicity scale and clipping metal shards from lungs, Sakura had little time or room to agonize on yet another encounter with _Naruto_. It was four in the morning by the time Sakura managed to drop into one of the seats in the corridor. The plastic squeaked, she bent over and pressed her cold temples to her knees.

Sakura was no closer to making miracles than she'd been all those years ago. It was a dull stab of guilt now, her head thumped and her fingers quivered from the exhaustion she felt after focusing for so long. The jerky, muddled waves that went through a body made weak in the wake of battle, when the adrenaline's gone, when the last drop's dried up, and the bones hollow out after the fire-rush. A shivery emptyiness.

Six had gone in, she'd lost two. The first was a goner by the time he hit the operating table, the second …Well. Sakura's two seconds commute had been two vital seconds the shinobi lost. His chakra pathways had been fried.

One of the surgeon's, fresh-faced, new…Sakura could hear him crying, very faintly, in the other room. Sakura considered the depressing duty of going back in there and addressing the surgeons, rehearsing the words that shishou would have said and that Sakura knew Tsunade could never believe enough to forgive herself.

She considered doing the proper thing and telling the boy that sometimes a med-nin could do everything in their power and not make a breakthrough. That sometimes people died on the operating table. That it didn't make them failures, that it didn't mean that they should let loss dishearten them. That it wasn't failure.

Every patient that Sakura had ever let fade haunted her with shadow. She'd lied through her teeth when she had to. She had given the same speech several times when she'd had to, when it had needed to be heard the way she'd needed to hear it when she first started out slitting the sides of fish on Tsunade's desk.

Sometimes, she used to tell Shizune when they'd both been frequent presences in the Hokage tower, that she swore she could see the glint of scales she'd smooshed in the grain from when they'd thrashed, clinging to slippery life with all their might.

Sakura sat up and crushed her palms against her eyelids. She took a deep breath.

Exhaled.

Her lungs, achingly empty – her head dizzy, she blinked hard a few times to clear her vision, to get the blots of harsh lobby lighting out of her eyes. One… Two… Three.

Good. She was…she was put together. She was alive. She was still a damn fool, but she could stand to be logical about her failures now, could stand to know how to not fall apart completely. Sakura didn't want to cry anymore, she'd already been Konoha's Biggest Crybaby – tears got you nothing. Words even less. It was actions. Actions, not words, or being sorry, or _saying_ that you were sorry – it was making sure you did everything you could not to let it happen again.

That was the moment Sai, resplendent in backless hospital robe, decided to smoosh into the ugly plastic chairsnext to her. He also dug his elbow – he had the pointiest elbows, my god – into her side. Sakura sighed, very loudly, a sigh that sounded like a growl. She couldn't even.

"Evening, Ugly."

He was pale, anemic nearly and the lighting in the hospital didn't help either. It pulled something in her, a little claw, tangling and dragging. Sai's sickly white skin, the sheen of fever still clinging to him, cold – he'd barely had enough blood in him to have made it as far as he had, nonetheless to even make it to Sakura's operating table.

"It's four in the morning, asshole."

Sai shrugged, non-plussed. Sakura looked up between the fingers she'd attempted clawing into her face and jerked her head at the nurses at the end of the corridor who'd been waddling after the escaped patient like distressed chickens. They tittered and left, already beleaguered enough by this _bullshit_. Sakura didn't know what was_ up_ with her Team, all of them couldn't sit still in the hospital unless you broke their legs. Which she was often tempted to do.

Kakashi would only come to the hospital if he was dragged there and usually attempt to leave once he could gather his guts into his arms, insisting with his usual alarming flippancy that he was _fine_. Sasuke liked bandaging up his own wounds because it made him feel like a man or _whatever_, Sakura usually resorted to sorting him out at home on the kitchen table because he was such a pain in the _ass_. Sai usually decided the moment he could stand up and walk three paces at least without falling flat on his lilly pale derrière, that he was good.

Naruto was never really _in_ the hospital, something about having a demon in your belly sorted out most of your injuries, and when he was in the hospital it was usually because shit was dire. And even then, he'd always smiled through it. That tight grin.

Her entire Team was a pain in the ass. Only Yamato could be counted on to remain in the hospital bed, obedient and polite. She decided that he was her favourite, and told him so once. He'd turned away, stammering, shy and so chuffed, the back of his neck turning red. Yep, her favorite.

"Been a while."

"Five minutes ago I stuffed your pancreas back into your body."

"Much obliged," Sai said with the kind infuriating civility those not used to him would have had a more of a reaction to, a short nod. "Are you alright?"

Sakura laughed, a hoarse thing that didn't fully come out of her throat. "Two down. Tricky mission."

"Most classified ones are."

Sakura shrugged with one shoulder, not even bothered anymore that this was above her pay grade, she just felt the faint, almost ignoble irritation she usually felt whenever someone seemed to think she was fishing for information or something. Like she was ever this obvious when it came to collecting intel, and like it had ever _stopped_ her before. She slumped back, her shoulders hitting the chair and rubbed her temples.

"You did your best," Sai said, plainly. Near consiliatory.

"And," Sakura looked at him, exhausted, her mouth pulling painfully in one corner. "It still didn't matter."

"Are you taking this as yet another opportunity to wallow in self-pity?"

"Yes." Sakura said, and groaned, rubbing the heel of her palms into her eyeballs. "Fuck."

"You did your best, Sakura."

"Okay, okay, Sai – Jeez."

"If anyone should be wallowing, it's me." Sai began thoughtfully, nodding importantly. "I'm the Captain who lost two of his agents on a retrieval mission. I'm the one who has to fill in the death forms – "

"You liar, _I'm_ the one who has to do that – "

"I'm the one who has to _sign_ the death forms, as well as the one who has to hand them in and report to Dickless. I haven't lost an agent in a while, last I remember, a visit to the family for condolences was also in order. For those who have families anyway. Those are always…odd." Sai frowned, a strange expression that usually indicated his discomfort and his confusion. He'd been getting better, still awkward, still a bit too abrupt and straight forward, but he had a better handle on understanding feelings, and sometimes, even _feeling_ them. Sakura had known she'd done right by punching him in the face all those years ago. Sakura's punches were an education all on their own. "Then there are funerals – "

"Wow, I thought it was amazing how I could make their deaths all about me, but you're doing the exact same thing."

"They were good men."

Good meat for the village. Sakura rolled her shoulders and carefully cracked her neck, not into reviewing Konoha's ethical policies again, it was a ninja village and shadiness was part and parcel of the entire matter. Sasuke. He was going to be back in a month, maybe two – they never really knew with these things – Sakura was supposed to continue the process of signing over her citizenship. She was glad Sasuke was gone, if only so she could do the things she was more suited for politically, than he was.

She stared blearily at the clock hanging across from them. Late. She'd be able to squeeze in three hours of sleep.

"How's the spawn?"

"Healthy." Sai supplied.

Ino and Sai had, and occasionally still did have, a physical relationship. Though Sakura wasn't so sure she believed that that was all that it was, that things were nearly that neat.

Ino was the heir to her clan. She'd been determined that she would, at the proper time, have a child by someone who would understand that she was using them for the purpose of having one. She'd reasoned that she wanted strong genes from a skilled but clanless shinobi – in order to avoid the clan drama which normally stank of propertorial bullshit a la the Hyuuga, the Uchiha etc – so she'd browsed the ranks.

She found Sai. Nice bloodline limit, but one that wouldn't eradicate the one she wanted to pass on. Nice enough face. Nice bodaaaaaay, Sakura had been cringing for the rest of her life into eternity since the moment that word came out of Ino's mouth. Sai was also occasionally sweet when he wasn't being an emotionally incapable adult.

He was also good at following orders and also Ino, had reasoned, less likely to want to later go against whatever terms they'd agreed upon.

Ino had no interest in being some shinobi housewife and was still interested in pursuing a career unimpeded by the pressure a more conventional shinobi husband would have put on her to play her 'role' as a 'mother'. Sai had seen the logic of the arrangement. Ino wanted a child, Sai was not averse to having progeny at some point. Ino had asked him for help in the task. Sai would be allowed and even welcomed to perform paternal duties when he liked, but major decisions on the child's upbringing would dominantly be made by Ino, though Sai was free to offer conjecture should he so wish.

So, they'd banged. And they raised the kid. Sakura was really in no position to judge, given her extremely unconvential circumstances herself. So. Ino got pregnant, which worked well, since everybody was getting pregnant. Except Sakura. Which a lot of villagers seemed to note as suspicious but okay.

Sai lived in his own apartment and Ino and her spawn were comfortable in the Yamanaka compound. Sai came and went to contribute to his child's upbringing and was free to do so, though Ino had told him that if he did not wish to contribute she would be totally okay with that too. He could choose how involved he wanted to be. Sai chose to be involved.

It was…weird in its efficiency. Ino got to secure her own heir without the drama or trouble of enslaving herself to another shinobi's chauvanistic will, and Sai was shockingly, a good father when he did show up.

Sakura also knew the two still fucked occasionally. Sakura imagined having sex with Sasuke again and sort of frowned, feeling a little repulsive of the notion of adding that layer of complexity to her and Sasuke's perfectly fine relationship. Also Sasuke. Having sex. Sakura frowned deeply. Sasuke was mostly asexual, unless it came to Naruto, and you know, her – and other people he had strong emotional responses to. In the heat of that moment. Adding more physicality to their already happily platonic relationship seemed like an annoying inconvenience to her. Sasuke could lay pipe and everything, but Sakura had had better later too. Sakura felt kind of gross inside considering sex with Sasuke _now_. It was like having sex with Ino.

Like, Ino was hot and everything so it wasn't that absurd, but like. Why would Sakura want to have sex with Ino? It seemed kind of a needless complication. She wouldn't hate it if she _had_ to, but like…she'd really rather not?

Sex and Sakura were a little more straightforward these days, which shocked her. When Sakura had an itch and she was in a situation where she could scratch it, she scratched it. That was literally it.

Ino was less – and good for her – discrete. More…voracious in appetite? Sakura stopped thinking it was slutty a long time ago. Something about _growing the fuck up_ left her less inclined to slut shame people, unless you know, she was in a situation where she _had_ to be petty. Sakura could be fucking petty sometimes, when she had to be.

Yeah, but Sai and Ino still fucked. Sakura was certain. Love or convenience, she wasn't sure. But it didn't seem to matter anyway? Things were good.

Sai smiled his flat dumb smile, Sakura had stopped needling him for it seeing as she was the Queen of Fake Smiles herself – Sai's lifeless smiles were a little more alive these days. They weren't normal, and they were still creepy as hell, but they were a hell lot more sincere in the sentiment even if it didn't fully come through, it was sincere in the very attemt at least, the sentiment present in the effort of the performance of it.

She held up a fist and tiredly punched his shoulder with it. "What."

"You need to sleep."

"I do."

"I don't think there's enough sleep in the world to rectify your looks," Sai continued with almost a feeling of paternal concern, "but I do know cutting back on the sleep you need to function isn't helping the state of things."

"Hey, ever thought of investing in a wardrobe that actually covers your unsightly midriff?"

"My midriff is one of my more attractive areas, it has proved an asset in several field obligat-"

"Ew, shut up. I'm gonna swap that for a different dig that's less fucking gross and ask. Is it a genetic thing, your inability to get a tan?"

"I wouldn't know, considering I'm a nameless, clanless orphan raised among other clanless, nameless orphans."

"Yeah, or made in like a test-tube probably."

"Probably."

She punched him again. Ugh. He won the pity game again. Sakura grinned, rueful and tired and shoved at him. "Okay, fine, you idiot."

He smiles blandly. Sakura wants to punch him again. It's honestly so – when she'd seen him on her table she'd cursed, her heart struck at the sight on him, racing. Her teammate. Her friend. She'd fixed it. He was alive, here with her. Being an asshole. But _alive._ And the relief feels almost pulpy at the bottom of her throat, it's just good to see that she'd been able to intercede in time. That it hadn't been too late.

Sakura was always a little too late.

"Until next time, Ugly."

If Sakura never saw Sai on her table again it'd be too soon.

Sakura rolled her eyes so far into the back of her head she almost pierced the veil of time and space to jump back a hundred years. If she jumped back a hundred years she could at least fuck somebody important like...the first Hokage. What kind of bragging rights would be due to Sakura then. Damn, Ino-pig would be both bitter and impressed. It was a thought that could keep Sakura warm for the rest of her days.

Sai rose and began to walk away. His pasty ass on display as the hospital gown flapped behind him. Sakura counted as she usually had a thousand times before. It was impressive that she reached five before Sai keeled over and collapsed.

The nurses shrieked and rushed forward.

Sakura rubbed at her eyes. Maybe an hour? Yep. She rose, and made her tired way to her prone teammate. She'd be able to squeeze in an hour of sleep.

* * *

Once, a while ago, she found Sasuke sorting rubble on the kitchen island.

Sakura was no stranger to blood on the floor, dirty kunais and the occasional smear of guts Sasuke tended to leave behind, but when he _did_ leave such things behind he normally did it when he was too beat up to put his guts back into his stomach let alone worry about the mess he was making on her precious pinewood floors. So she excused it, in like, special circumstances.

"I hope that's more important than being attached to your spine," Sakura sang with homicidal sweetness.

Sasuke acknowledged her presence with a grunt.

Sakura frowned and tiptoed up next to him. Peering at the debris, scattered among chunks of old brick and flaking cement Sakura saw scrolls in states of disrepair, their edges blackened but only just. Like something that had barely been saved from the fire. On their sides she could make out the uchiha clan insignia, half torn, like an apple with a chunk ripped out.

Sasuke shook his head, puffing out a breath. "It doesn't make sense."

"Clan?"

"Clearing the place out has meant excavating a few hiding places." Sasuke explained quietly, not taking his eyes off his findings. "None of it means anything anymore, I can't trust anything that remains. Everything they don't want anyone to find was destroyed ages ago."

Nothing good came from the airing out of secrets. Especially Uchiha ones.

Sasuke glanced once at her. "It just…doesn't make sense." He stared straight ahead again, his jaw ticking. "The coup, even if the clan…even if they _wanted_ to throw a coup…what - it doesn't make sense to me. What did they _want?_ To make Hokage? What did they want, the pride? Power? Konoha's resources, wealth? I've been searching for correspondence between clan members, I've been looking for anything documented that could have pointed out to exactly what they wanted apart from what my _father_ apparently wanted, and I'm drawing up blanks. And even then…there were children, the elderly, even if there _were_ plans for a hostile takeover, what exactly could have justified each of them getting brutally murdered? Was _all_ the clan in agreement? In these situations one expects there to be discourse, discussions, some evidence of a future plan or some sign of _internal_ struggle – did everyone in the clan agree to the coup, or was it central and secret to the clan elders? I don't think everyone knew about it because it's an entire clan of _people_, not everyone is going to be in agreement. No matter our mistreatment, the bias – the Uchiha were not a hive mind. And what would they achieve by doing away with every clan in some bizarre genocidal coup, a village's power and might relies on not alienating numerous clans but earning their fealty, what might would a village have if it was made only entirely of Uchiha? Is that really what anyone wanted? With these sorts of things there's always a sign of some sort of discussion, evidence of the differing viewpoints within the clan, who agreed, who disagreed. I just can't find anything _about_ it."

Sakura watched her teammate struggle, watched him tear his hand through his hair in an uncharacteristic show of frustration. The rubble before them, the dirty kitchen table – Sakura could only really pay attention to the fine lines suggesting themselves on Sasuke's skin and know that in a few years his age would begin to show. Then again, Sasuke had always been so much older after what had happened with the clan – but in some ways, and abundant in the stupidity of the many things he and Naruto got up to with their Eternal Rivalry™ from the early days, he'd also been so, so young. Just a _boy._

He was still just a boy now. Still in many ways. Coming to terms with his history and grasping, tentatively, like he thought it might escape him, a future that wouldn't be dragged back by it.

"I lived in the clan haunts for _years_ after massacre, they'd already confiscated anything of value of course, but something of_ this_ enormity, there's always hints left behind. An angry letter here, a fracture – but there's_ nothing_. Just bloodstains. Just more secrets. I can't even trust the secret vault beneath our dojo because Danzo obviously had the means to read what was not meant to him, to perhaps manipulate any truth that might have been allowed to me."

"Itachi didn't want you to know about the coup," Sakura suggested, already supplying him alternatives. Already thinking through the entire thing with him. "It's possible that he had already destroyed all evidence…"

"I considered that and…it just…the massacre meant blood pooling so vast, I couldn't get the stain out of the grain in the family dojo. All great crimes leave their marks, Sakura, _everywhere_. As astute as Itachi was, I don't believe he could account for everything."

"What are you trying to say?"

"I'm trying to find evidence of a coup."

"And...you can't find it."

"Exactly."

"Danzo – " at the flash of Sasuke's eyes, Sakura began more carefully. "as much of a _psycho_ as he was, genocidal fuckery aside, according to shishou he was always more motivated by good intentions rather than…fuck."

"What?"

"Sharingan collector. Vested interest. He still had the village at heart, but still."

Sasuke's eyes shut, he let out a bitter exhale. "Itachi listened to him."

"Itachi was a thirteen year old _boy_. I know he was a genius, but anyone's susceptible to a little influence, especially from _that_ kind of authority."

"Danzo," Sasuke's teeth grit. "If I could go back, I'd do it so I could kill him a thousand times over."

"You don't want to hear what I'd do if I could go back," Sakura said, "But it's a hell of a lot more interesting than spending time with wrinkly old Danzo." She skewed a smile in his direction but Sasuke was too embroiled in another one of his murderous daydreams to properly appreciate her tactless attempts at levity. "No one knew about the coup outside of the authorities involved, everyone suspected the Uchiha were full of unrest and resentment over their situation – but no one suspected a _coup_. Danzo might have wanted to keep it that way. Otherwise anyone would be able to have made the connection _between_ the massacre and a halted coup, and it would not improve the Hokage's standing with other council members if they knew how easy it was to make the secret executive orders required to _wipe out an entire clan._ The Hyuugas, the Naras, all the clan heads who bank on their positions, their airs wouldn't mean a damn thing, they'd realize in the great scheme of things that none of their airs ever did– they'd feel a lot less confident in their leadership of the Hokage if they knew how easily one of their own was done away with. Danzo couldn't leave any evidence linking the massacre to the coup. Maybe he destroyed everything."

"And still, no one knows."

"It wouldn't help the village if they did."

"Glad to know that the murder of an entire clan might be a diplomatic inconvenience." Sasuke spat, sharp with sarcasm.

Sakura fastened her lips together. That wasn't what she meant. Sasuke _knew _that that wasn't what she meant, she let him work through his bitter reflections because he was entitled to them. Slowly, she lay a hand between his shoulder blades. A light, barely present point of contact.

Sasuke's body tensed, ramrod. Every muscle locked. Her hand rose and fell with his jagged breathing. One sharp inhale, a shuddering exhale. Two. Three.

On the fourth the tenseness bled from him as he forced himself to put his body at ease. Sakura kept her hand on him until she was sure he was there. She waited until she was sure he was more okay before she rubbed a single glowing circle into his shoulder and dropped her arm.

She thought Sasuke's grunt might have been a 'thank you'. Begdrudgingly grateful of the slight dose of medical chakra that she'd entered into his system as a soothing agent, quickly targeting the muscles he'd bruised from his last training session.

Nobody knew. The Hokage couldn't afford them to. They couldn't be allowed to realize that the power they hefted around was in the grandscheme of things easily only an illusion of power. Naruto _needed_ the clan leaders to believe that they still held complete sway, that they had weight to throw around, if they knew how easily they could be destroyed, and had been – as with the Uchiha – in the past… none of them would have the security or confidence in his leadership. And whatever tenuous ties that held the village together would snap. The clans could not be united under a leader who let them believe they had great influence and sway over the village decisions when this was merely an illusion cultivated to keep the peace. It'd be civil unrest, and soon, a civil war.

If anyone believed it.

Sakura let out a short sigh. Suspicion still clung to the Uchiha name, the infamous clan of two, or three – if Sakura bothered to consider the legalities of it, since she was Sasuke's partner in parenting or whatever. With or without a marriage license.

People still shuddered away from Sasuke, wary. Watching his every move in the street and speaking carefully when spoken to as if they were afraid that he'd snap into a murderous rampage at the wrong word. Sasuke bore this scrutiny and his infamy with very much the same attitude he'd born his unasked for fame when the hollo polloi's held weird cult-like admiration of him as a twelve year old. Which was that he did not acknowledge it. But she could tell he _noticed_. The bunch of his shoulders whenever a whisper came too sharp or too close, as if it took everything in his blood not to rip back to the gossipers and scream the truth in their faces.

And what _use_ was the truth? The Uchiha clan while feared in the past had only become a point of vague sympathy in the village once eliminated. People had at least felt a little sorry for them, in a mildly nostalgic way, remembering that the streets where the clan's houses were situated used to be, which had been filled with dark haired children and the old lady Orihime who used to sell the best mochi in Konoha.

No one wold think so nicely of old lady Orihime if they knew that not only had the Uchiha already performed the initial indiscretion of _consecutively_ siring several murderous psychopaths, but that they had been planning a _coup? _Whatever last shred of kinship the village might have expressed for the terrible loss would have disappeared entirely.

What would the truth help? The Uchiha clan would no longer be tragic martyrs but vile conspirators, Uchiha Itachi would be a child soldier manipulated by his betters. They would know what they hadn't before, that the feared Uchiha Itachi had been a double agent primary in Konoha's gathering of intel on Akatsuki. That Uchiha Itachi had been a hero. And for what? For a system they could no longer trust? For a Hokage and leaders who instead of lifting their hand to save and soothe a clan had raised it to squash the Uchiha further into degradation with their stinginess on giving promotions to their shinobi or attempting at all to end the institutionalized oppression that had kept pushing the Uchiha back into a place where it could only behave like an animal that had suddenly realized it had been cornered? For a Hokage that could destroy a clan in one night, with a single order. That could raise the village on a _lie._

They would finally know why Sasuke had still turned against the village after his brother's death, that it wasn't because he'd finally seen light under the ugly ambitions of the Sannin he'd trained under or because of a thirst for power, but because of the truth that they would rather not know.

Uchiha Itachi and Uchiha Sasuke's black reputation would not suddenly be lifted, become clean and perfect, no one would rush into the streets and suddenly love them for their tormented histories. Itachi's sacrifice, should it be known…it was too late to secure proper vindication. It would do more harm than good.

The truth might have mattered had it been revealed at the earliest time after the war. But Naruto was not in office then. Tsunade-shishou had been careful but intent on advising Kakashi that he should handle the matter carefully when the daimyo chose him to take over her position. She passed her hat over but had pressed the importance of Kakashi actually _handling_ it at some point. Fearful of sparking more controversy after a tenuous peace had been achieved with the other shinobi nations. In the wake of the war, she was hesitant to throw more scandal Konoha's way, when Konoha was still too weak, too busy rebuilding to drudge up the ugly secret. The nations were at peace then, but it could quickly turn ugly, peace was never a permanent thing among the shinobi, great war or not. Tsunade would not allow Konoha to come under fire again for more bodies buried beneath the floorboards and the international shit stirring war criminals they tended to spawn in time to implicate the village in the _next _war and – _and_ shishou would have none of that shit, especially not in the initial year or two which would be so integral to deciding whether Konoha could fully recover.

It was too weak to face that kind of heat or to give further weakness to exploit. Shishou wouldn't have it when Konoha was still trying to pick itself up. Clan leaders and the kages of the world had been at the time, living that brief period of post-war peace high that allowed all of them to be more cooperative towards one another. Finding out that a kage could destroy an entire clan by his word alone, in a single night, abusing the authority granted him by the daimyo and using tax-dollar resources towards the slaughter as well as the staging an _entire_ cover-up…no one would feel too hot about the current leadership or very nice about listening to it. Tsunade-shishou had still needed them to cooperate; she wasn't exactly operating from a position of strength, with a Konoha that was more rubble than forest and all. So newborn, so capable of being fully destroyed once more. It was too delicate a situation to even _think_ about bringing up the Uchiha massacre. Not that early.

And Kakashi? Sakura couldn't adequately say what his reasoning and motivations were other than keeping peace, locked out of government workings as she'd been – he'd kept mum too.

By the time Naruto had been sworn in the secret was too heavy. Even Naruto's village hero status would make handling the situation awkward at best, horrifically dangerous at worst. His credibility aside, there were many players who'd take the opportunity to drag the fuck out of Konoha should the moment arise. A secret like that would create an opening that the clans – who despite their civil compliance to the current authority would always be power hungry political motherfuckers at heart – would be loathe not to properly exploit. Naruto did not speak it.

"He promised," Sasuke said in a whisper Sakura could barely hear. "He promised he'd fix it."

And even later when she'd put a lot of her grief at Naruto's feet, she'd still realize that Naruto _couldn't_ fix everything. It wasn't _really_ his fault. The bullheaded honesty he'd employed in his youth would do more harm than good in the political arena. She understood why he wouldn't reveal the truth of the Uchiha massacre but it didn't mean it couldn't still grieve her. He'd learnt a lot at Kakashi's side, that ultimately the village came before his teammate's own personal grievances, no matter how terrible it was. _Would you really have done any differently, Sakura?_

"Naruto needs a little time."

She'd still been making excuses for him. Even after he'd shown no inclination to ban the Hyuuga's beastly bird cage seal practices.

Tenten's little weapon's shop was already up and running, booming business. Outwardly Tenten's resignation from active duty didn't seem to faze the kunoichi in the least. The matter of her refusing the invitation to ANBU had been a private one, it wasn't too lethal a security breach considering that Naruto had allowed his sometime chuunin aide to remain present. The chuunin, some Konohamaru-looking motherfucker had heartily sworn to secrecy despite no one demanding it of him, which of course meant that within three hours the whole shinobi populace knew about Tenten's crisp workplace-politics-equivalent of 'Fuck You.'

Tenten had been formally called to the Hokage's office, the invitation had been made. Her response was a curt, rather quietly adamant, if succinct single utterance of 'No'.

Sakura had thought that she couldn't be more impressed with Tenten than she already was, but the damn girl's badass streak never ended. Girl had guts and the vicious integrity to go with those guts.

Tenten never spoke about it but she also made no effort to put the talk at bay by pretending the rumours were only rumours. Hers was an act of defiance, enforced. It was also obvious to anyone who was smart enough to look at the situation analytically that this was a rather sharp jab at the Hokage. It was as obvious as if Tenten had walked up to Naruto in the street in broad daylight and spat at the ground between them.

He had not honoured her dead and she would not honour him, neither would she accept his warm regard nor esteem beyond what was required of her loyalty as a citizen. Should he make an order, she would obey. But she would dare him to first. To punctuate his audacity further by calling on her service in ANBU? They were few things Tenten was unable to forgive, and this she could not.

Tenten was ever respectful but with all her respect and civility there was underlying bolt of rage, shot through her metal core like a line of red hot lava, eternally alive. A scathingly lack of remorse for her scorn.

That was of course, if anyone _bothered_ to be analytical about the situation. The villagers – who were pleasantly unaware about the military structures, power struggles and intrigue that marked the more distinguished of the shinobi classes – _and_ most of the average shinobi populace who were usually unconcerned with village machinations apart from knowing and following their orders – would only see a war exhausted kunoichi who was putting away her tools so others could use them, focusing on her business, and fishing for someone to start a family with.

Which was a belief that became increasingly more hilarious over the years as Tenten showed _zero interest_ in pursuing long-term commitments to the men and women she let into her life. She seemed just as vaguely devoted to the same scandalous spinsterhood that marked Sakura's own life. Both were childless, husbandless. But while Tenten let the odd hottie crawl into her bed, Sakura's reputation was far more deliciously depraved to the villagers.

Shacked up with the Uchiha but not even legally married? The lack of fidelity showcased by the fact that Sakura sometimes had sex with other people meant they'd accumulated a fair share of hilariously misplaced 'swingers' rumours to the mill.

Sakura had long overused her instinctive rolling of the eyes and now barely even noticed the things people said. People were always talking shit. She often thought that her and Sasuke's relationship mirrored a relationship between two ancient gay men. If the men were in their 90's and too old to get it up and rather exhausted with the idea of mingling in quite that way with each other. Okay, that wasn't that _great_ an analogy? But. Their arrangement was _refreshingly_ sexless. However, explaining the finer points of this to an extremely traditional populace was kind of an exercise in futility, also Sakura had no interest in explaining herself to anyone. Gone were the fucking _days._

People were _always_ going to talk shit. They tittered about how the Fifth's apprentice could saddle herself with the Uchiha and spoke pitifully about her childhood infatuation which Sakura had had to come to terms that it was something she would _always_ be known for, that for all the suggested sexual depravation their rumoured romantic relationship might contain wasn't it terribly sad that that Sakura seemed so _barren?_

Which. Like. Sarada was perfect and all, the light of Sakura's life really, but Sakura was just as interested in utilizing her biological parts to bringing a baby into the world as she was in skewering ice picks through her eye holes. At least, right now. Who knew in the next one hundred years? She was flexible.

Sasuke was apparently too, in the rumours, one armed or not. No matter how much he frightened them the people couldn't help but speculate that he'd learned a thing or two under Orochimaru. That one…well if Sakura was quite honest she couldn't really blame them for _that_ one. Orochimaru and all the other people Sasuke had associated with in his illustrious career as badly dressed nuke nin, looked like a sexual deviant.

So Sakura would give them that one. Mostly because it was funny as fuck and the giggles kept her warm in the cold nights she would have otherwise spent being a Petty Little Bitch. God, she was so petty sometimes. She couldn't help it. She had to combat it _somehow._

People couldn't seem to wrap their minds around their little household arrangement. But for all their gossip, the villagers still respected the fuck out of Tsunade's little apprentice who'd bloomed into such a wonderful medic nin, regrettable (alleged) taste in nuke nins aside.

She'd heard a few Sakura-sama's here and there, and a few cringeworthy Hime's. _God._ Sakura only took that Hime shit from the daimyo because he was big on that stuff and she couldn't hit him without five hundred motherfuckers stepping in to break her arm, but okay.

Also? She kept in his good graces because foul mouthed or not, Sakura was a Nice Person. Or. You know, was Polite to Her Authority Figures, key political players she could still hope to build rapport with and her elders –

_Most_ of her elders? Except Kakashi.

_Kakashi didn't count_. Sakura didn't know when exactly her disappointment in Kakashi grew into fullblown lack of confidence in his abilities and an absolute inability to be impressed with anything he di– Wait. She did.

_Maybe_ it was when he basically fucking sacked her so she couldn't continue her duties in the Hokage tower for no fucking_ reason_. Like she'd even _want _to type his fucking emails in the first place or something, Sakura would have been doing him a _favour_. The asshole. Since then, she'd harboured a strong, enduring sense of skepticism with Kakashi that sometimes was manifestly expressed. But sure. _She _was the bitter bitch. Fine. Whatfucking_ever_.

Anyway, staying in the daimyo's good graces by attending to his gout once in a while didn't hurt. Also Sakura was okay with taking compliments from old men as long as they weren't pawing at her. She wasn't afraid to curbstomp an old man if he was being grabby. However, like Sasuke, the daimyo didn't particularly strike her as a hetrosexual either. For all his courtly floweriness, he seemed to respect her enough not to go beyond cheesy compliments and thusly kept his hands to himself.

His son, Hikaru however, was a slimy motherfucker Sakura avoided. He would have been handsome had it not been for his eyes, the shape of them round but sharp, lean and lithe and shrewd where his father was comfortingly huge and boisterous and much more easily charmed. He too kept his hands to himselves, but he tended to show up during her sessions with his father and watch Sakura like she was some ugly ho who was there put her hand down his father's pants to achieve some sort of political favour. Like Sakura needed to touch anyone's junk to suck up and get her favours. What kind of amateur did he think she was?

_If he thought you were an amateur he wouldn't watch you so closely._

But he kept his hands to himself. He bowed in his golden robes, a princely snake. He kept his hands to himself, like his father.

A relief. Sakura would have hated having to deal with the political fallout guaranteed in any scenario that involved the curbstomping of daimyos. It would suck. She'd have to do it on principle anyway. But it wouldn't have been pretty if he'd ever made it necessary. Sakura was all about her (admittedly few) principles. If she'd gotta, she'd gotta. Thems the rules.

The daimyo was all _about _young, pale court attendants. So it was good Sakura had coordinated her entire arrangement with the daimyo in such a way as to make sure that Sasuke stayed the fuck away, novelty that he was to the daimyo. Because Sakura knew her restrain in curbstomping individuals far outstripped Sasuke's. Sasuke would curbstomp a motherfucking god and give absolutely no fucks. It was better this way. Sakura would rather keep Sasuke on another planet if it would keep him any further away from the daimyo. If it was possible. Because curbstomping, while securing immediate satisfaction, was not good long term. Not at all.

It was _nice _still being esteemed and she knew that it was largely the village population's lingering esteem for her that kept them from being more openly hostile with Sarada. She was Tsunade's apprentice, she'd faced off Aksuna no Sasori and won (though people seemed to conveniently forget that she'd had help. Like. Badass Heavylifter motherfucking Old Lady Chiyo. The old bat would win any fight even if she was partnered with like a baby or something. Sakura couldn't take too much of the credit), she'd saved the Kazekage (again, she'd had help), punched out a goddess (which was basically the extent of her lousy contribution to that fight, she had to be honest), was a war hero (that was true) _and _she'd kept their golden wonderboy Hokage alive by literally pumping his heart herself.

She was a kunoichi with a good record politically, having accompanied the Hokage to meetings and attended to several political, economic and council matters, an accomplished medic nin, was a daimyo's favourite – she'd been gifted _land – _like? If someone had told a Twelve Year Old Sakura that she'd ever manage to get this far…well, scratch that. Twelve Year Old Sakura? _Twelve Year Old Sakura _would have demanded to know if she was fucking Uchiha Sasuke or nah. So. Twelve Year Old Sakura was a _dumbass._

No mistake, Sakura was ashamed of a lot of the shit she did at that age, but she could never bring herself to pretend she could erase the person that she'd been. She owned it, or _tried_ to while battling the great toxic hatred she held for herself and the insecurities she'd still carried over into her adult life. As much as she still hated herself and _especially_ who she'd been then, she still held a sort of bruised tenderness for that girl. That was her. It was always going to _be_ her.

So Sakura's reputation helped. Not that Sarada was treated _terribly_ per se…anyone would _rue _the day they dared show violence or open hostility to Sakura's declared kin. She'd known her reputation for pummelling people into the nearest mountain range would come in handy. So no one dared treat Sarada in much the same way Sakura feared they would - …or as they_ had_ Naruto.

But they were suspicious of her, wary, exclusionary in their small little ways. There were many birthdays she wasn't invited to and a few groups on the playground were gossipy mean spirited bitches whose herds immediately dissolved should it look like Sarada wanted to approach to be amiable or engage at all. Sarada didn't say anything and outwardly it didn't seem to bother her, but Sakura had seen the resentful glares she'd thrown Boruto who had no problem securing a posse of friends at any time. Sarada thought Boruto was ungrateful and stupid. Boruto returned the feeling with a petty-ass fervour that had Sakura blithely wondering if he could be her own child because she was the pettiest person she knew obviously he didn't inherit it from any of his parents; his jealousy and bitterness were a hell of a lot more apparent. He wasn't a bad kid but he acted like Sarada had done him some eternal wrong. Sarada mostly ignored him, as Sasuke had Naruto, and once in a while answered as infuritatingly as Sasuke would have with Naruto in their gennin days. He did get under her skin, whether he knew it or not.

Sarada had few friends outside of the Rookie Nine's combined spawn and even of those she was mostly close to Chouji's freaking adorable daughter – like seriously, if Sakura had a damn artistic bone in her body she might commit sonnets to how cute that kid was. Like Diaper Commercial cute.

So apart from Chouji's kid and the ShikamaruxTemari DNA blend of cutting genius that was Shikada, Sarada didn't really…hit it off with anyone else. Even with them she had a hard time opening up, so 'hitting it off' was a hesitantly applied term at best. Uchiha standoffishness was obviously a genetic thing.

Sarada was usually alone on the playground, having different break times and class schedules than with those she might have been more comfortable with. Distanced already by her Uchiha name from the rest of her peers, and also by the talent and quickly apparent skill that launched her into Child Prodigy status which, if Sakura remembered, unless your entire family was recently tragically murdered didn't harbour you as much sympathy or admiration as initially thought.

Sarada was also Sasuke's kid, raised on his complicated high level techniques as well as his rigorous and disciplined training routines. This matched with Sakura's own tutoring meant that together they had raised a _disgustingly_ proficient child who far outstripped most of her class.

Which of course bred the usual resentment. _Boruto_ obviously played the Naruto character as his father had in this continuing saga as Sarada's vocally butthurt Eternal Rival™ counterpart.

Sakura had tried fostering a more positive relationship between the two, with absolutely _little _of Hinata's entirely half-hearted help. Sakura never hit her kid (outside the training field, they were like. Ninjas. Duh) but even _she'd_ caught some hands a few times growing up, which she was eternally grateful to her mother for. Sakura could have seen herself becoming even _more_ of an embarrassing brat otherwise. So if you needed to hit your kid…like…try it? At least once? Spank him?

She tried to imagine Hinata. Smacking Boruto. Boruto who she let jump out of windows during family dinners. Yeah. Okay, sure. Sakura's powers of imagination did not extend _that _far.

Sakura was personally sick of the rivalry theme that seemed to strike through most of their lives. That shit was old, ugly, and it needed its toxicity levels controlled because Sakura was _not_ interested in another overblown rivalry turning into another overblown war. Fuck that noise.

Boruto was a pain in the ass. She understood _why_ – a desperate cry for attention, daddy issues etcetera etcetera _whatever_. She understood _why_ and internally, forcefully reminded herself of the reasons whenever the little tyke was being a spiteful little shit so Sakura could preferably approach their continuous conflicts sympathetically and constructively instead of you know. Giving in to her violent instincts and pummelling a minor through the nearest mountain range.

Hinata, bless her soul, was a Good Woman…Sakura, as a Nice Person had to remind herself to control the brief (extended) bouts of pettiness that plagued her (eternally) once in a while. Hinata, the Good Woman, didn't properly assert herself with her children as often as she should have. She seemed to coddle them and was either largely ignorant or incapable of controlling their behaviour. Naruto, busy _busy_ Naruto, was never really _there_, Sakura gathered. So she couldn't really blame Hinata, parenting was a two people thing, a partnership, what the hell was Hinata supposed to do when one half of her support and authority over her children was never there to assist her in parenting?

When Naruto was there he could be impatient and even aggressive with Boruto, as if he was at odds with how to behave. While Sakura wished Hinata would hit Boruto like even once, she wished Naruto would _stop_ hitting him. She knew he loved his children and that he had it easy with Himawari because she was a precious baby who troubled no one, but Naruto seemed boggled and bogglingly inept when it came to controlling Boruto's acts of deviance and angsty disruptive outbursts. Dude hadn't even hit puberty and was already well into that unhealthy wallowing sulkiness usually associated with Uchihas, in Sakura's experience anyway.

Boruto's open disrespect was met with immediate reprimand, which did nothing to help matters as Boruto became even more set on his uselessly awful attitude and authority complex.

He was a troubled kid. Sakura could sympathise. More so when she was far, far away, so that the boy wasn't testing her patience with present immediacy. Naruto wasn't a bad parent, he did try, but the matter remained that he wasn't there when he should have been.

Sasuke was out of the village for long periods of time but he wasn't faced with _half_ the resentment from Sarada that Boruto reserved for his own father. Sakura usually had to put up with Sarada's passive aggressiveness when she was wallowing, but over the years that wasn't as often as she'd thought it would be. Sakura had _grown up_ pining after Uchiha fucking Sasuke, passive aggressiveness from Uchihas didn't even phase her anymore.

Sarada learnt to stop sulking. Sasuke always came back. Sarada made it count when he did. Sakura wasn't sure she could take complete credit for Sarada being emotionally more mature in that area, maybe that was all Sarada herself. But. She was allowed to once in a while be proud that she hadn't absolutely fucked up raising the girl, so far. She was _allowed._

Naruto was Hokage. While Sasuke left the village on missions which were as shady as they were integral to the village's well-being and success, Naruto's duty to the village was a thing so huge, so all encompassing…Sakura could understand why Boruto might behave the way he did. Naruto didn't _mean_ to make his son feel second to the village, and Sakura knew Naruto didn't feel that way about his family, but at that age a child will process a lot of things in a lot of different, less than rational ways.

Boruto treated Naruto the way he'd treat a deadbeat dad who'd started a family with someone else, he was jealous, angry and always insecure. He hated it when people praised his father and asked him if he felt lucky to be the Hokage's kid. He was very vocal about calling Naruto a Shitty Old Man.

Sakura had gone to see Naruto that fateful night, after dragging Boruto to his mother's. He'd made vividly imaginative, but ultimately unflattering adjustments to the Hokage monument by grapheeting the entire mountainface. Sakura, still in her labcoat, exhausted and irritated that her journey home had been interrupted by her having to discipline Naruto's often satanic spawn so that instead of going home to face plant into the couch where she'd collapse, too tired to make it even to her bed like she'd _initially_ planned – Sakura was now instead going to see Naruto. That long lost stranger. About his _dumbass kid._ She'd had to speak to him at some point about Boruto's consistently terrible behaviour, why not then, with a haul of six spray paint cans and a tub or two of acrylics in a crate she balanced against her hip.

She'd found Naruto pouring over scrolls, embroiled in the paperwork that had been Tsunade's bane. Having been inured to her shishou's traumas with paperwork Sakura could sympathise and she could also enforce a much needed interruption.

The special jounin who'd guarded the door had been unfamiliar to her, she'd felt a pang of sadness, remembering Izumo and Kotetsu who'd always played (largely useless) bouncers letting any odd person – _Naruto_ – storm in to bother the Hokage.

She'd ragged on them a few times because if they couldn't control when the next time would be that Naruto would have another emotional revelation then they very well had to control when he could come and create a disruption with it. It was the damn Hokage's office, not a fishmarket.

The two would usually reply with a quick, cheery apology and sideline Sakura's fuming with juicy gossip. It was mostly effective. They were also not above moaning after Shizune for aid when Sakura's wrath could not be tamed with details about this love affair or that rivalry, _Shizune-neeeee_ they'd whine and go on to claim that _Sakura-chan was bullying them._

She'd felt a grin tug at her mouth as she'd approached the door to the office, idiots. She still saw them around once in a while, if infrequently, and they seemed to be taking it easy. She'd chatted with Izumo a few weeks ago when she'd bumped into him at the fruit sellers, and they'd caught up quickly. He was planning on looking into 'this whole sensei thing'. Good for him. _Don't Kakashi it_, she'd told him with false-graveness. He'd barked out a sharp laugh before poorly squashing his mirth and telling her she was mean. Damn straight she was mean, Sakura had pinched him so he would remember it for the next month.

She missed them. Which was kind of a useless feeling. Sakura wished she'd stop feeling a lot of the useless things she felt.

The two guards at the door had not stopped her beyond curtly demanding her reason for visiting without appointment. Sakura had pointed to the crate balanced on her hip and also _curtly_ told them she was here on disciplinary business.

For a second or two it seemed they would deny her entry. Sakura waited. Raised her brow in prompt. Which had several interpretations, most useful and most often, as a light enough if rather vague suggestion preluding her near legendary violence. A beat later they crisply stepped aside to let her through.

She'd felt their suspicion. She wasn't exactly a desirable. None of Naruto's old teammates were, really. It wasn't that they came around that often either to be expected visitors who could come and go as they pleased anyway.

The two guards…they might have worn ANBU masks, but those things didn't fool anyone. Sakura, a veteran of seeing about every body living or dead (and naked or near naked) from _every clan_ in Konoha on her operating table was well acquainted with the markers of each. Not that the long flowy hair the masked kunoichi and the shinobi sported was exactly subtle. Hyuuga clan. But the lean musculature, the shape of their hands. Sakura always knew.

She'd waved away the feeling of unease, that Naruto surrounded himself with the Hyuuga to this extent. Inside, she was already nervous as it was. She hadn't seen Naruto in a long time. She hadn't sought him out in even longer. She'd realized too, that as much as she'd pretended to be incredibly inconvenienced by Boruto's hijinks and motivated by good will, she'd also snatched at the opportunity to seek her teammate out. It was desperate. It was stupid. If Sakura dwelt on it any further she'd work herself up into making even more of a fool of herself. So she'd barrelled through to see Naruto, working away.

Sakura sympathised, and enforced the much needed interruption shishou was usually grateful for in the old days. She dumped the crate on top of the official documents and Naruto literally squawked, alarmed that she'd possibly ruined his papers. He looked up at her with indignation, ready to turn red with anger and instead blinked quickly, mouth hanging open to air his several complaints. He hung. "…Sakura-chan?"

He hadn't even noticed her coming in. That was some serious focus. Worrying, actually.

Sakura had quickly noticed the rest of him. The tiredness around his eyes, how his mouth had been frowning hard over his work. His hat was aside of him, his cropped hair messy would soon need a little cutting again. It never got as long as it used to in the past. The buzzcut endured. Sakura analysis was subtle, quick, professional. The buzzcut always made him look a lot older. She wasn't sure she'd ever like it.

Pushing aside her rather reductive observations which were helpful to literally _no one ever,_ Sakura's face which had been a serious, flat mask, morphed around the mouth. She smiled, small but bright. "Hey."

Impressively, he only opened and closed his mouth in imitation of some sort of beached monk fish for like ten seconds. Before a hesitant grin began to grow on his face, adjusting to welcoming her. "Hey."

It was dumb. How she felt a little warm in the chest. She was still nervous, still a little scared, but Naruto – despite the distance, even when she knew she should be madder at him – she couldn't help it. As much as he sent her into such a state of confusion these days, she couldn't forget how readily he could make her smile all those years ago. At this point it was gut instinct to grin. Even in her unease. It was Naruto. It was always Naruto. A lot might change, but not the way he made her feel. Surely not that.

"Got a present for you," Sakura jerked her chin, talking with casual authority. "Don't worry, it's not a neatly packaged assassination attempt, thought Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum out there seemed hard pressed to inquire."

"Ah," Naruto straightened with exaggerated soberness, considering the crate as if he were readying to open an officially mailed parcel. Solicitous. "Wise that they desisted."

"Agreed."

Sakura's own exaggerated seriousness broke around another grin, it was alarming how easy it was. To talk to him. Like no time had passed. She watched him, her insides bruising at the sight, Naruto joking around with her. It shouldn't be this easy. It wasn't fair that they'd let it be this easy.

He rose and peered into the crate with the curiosity and suspicion of an art dealer valuing a piece. "Ah," he decided. "Boruto."

"That's it?" Sakura spluttered, "_Ah, Boruto?"_

Naruto's humour dissipated, the put on act halted so he could scrub a palm down his face. "Pretty much."

"Naruto – "

"Needs a good walloping, that dumbass."

She frowned, he just sounded so _tired_. "You did the same things when you were that age."

"I have also destroyed many a treeline," Naruto reminded her, "or you have. I was just the projectile, you were the fucking trebuchet," he laughed, remembering. "Sakura, when we were kids you were already changing the damn landscape even then. One of your punches would have done him good."

Sakura shifted a little on her feet. Eyes flickering away for a brief moment, she folded her arms. Holding herself a little defensively. As much as she saw the value of her reputation for hitting people, she was reminded by how it was sometimes uncomfortable remembering how much she used to hit Naruto. Naruto would always laugh about it, genuinely amused by it, but Sakura didn't feel so great about it being brought up. At least at fifteen she only hit Naruto when he really,_ really_ needed hitting. She was open to hitting him now, should it be required, but she'd rather not have to dwell on the dumb things she did as a petty – or more petty – brat.

"Didn't really help you." She muttered.

Naruto grinned again, ever grand with his compliments. "Sure it did."

Sakura tossed her head, rolling her eyes. "Look. Just _look_, there's like twelve different paints in there. Where does he even _get_ this stuff? Wasn't there a village-wide ban on him being supplied by any retailer or market?"

"I don't know," Naruto hummed, folding his arms and considering the small collection on his table. "Could have employed genjutsu, could have stockpiled an entire building worth of this shit before the ban was announced. He's a sneaky bastard."

"He's yours, though."

"He had to get the other half of his good looks somewhere," Naruto said with fake humbleness. "Now, what was it this time. How phallic?"

"Pretty phallic." Sakura admitted. "Also, accompanied by text. Not very nice text."

Naruto nodded. "That's new. Okay. Fine. They're already cleaning up?"

"Yeah," she'd grabbed two other chuunin to supplement the three already distressedly using water jutsu to hose down the entire monument. "Should be done by now. Some of them seemed pretty used to this with how quickly they showed up."

"Huh. They are. Well, thanks, Sakura-chan."

"No problem."

"I usually hear this stuff about Boruto from the others. Not that I'm complaining that I get to see you today…"

Sakura's face heated, yeah. Of course. He was busy. She stammered, not liking how easy it was for her to fall into old habits where she always felt like defending or explaining herself. "I was on my way home. Earlier in the day than usual, considering that I pulled a longer shift. Caught him as he was running from a couple of chuunin."

He didn't seem as angry, but tired and fond, even if it frustrated him. "That's Boruto."

"Like father like son, I guess."

"I wouldn't get caught though, Sakura-chan."

"You liar," Sakura snorted, "I've seen Iruka-sensei beat your ass like four times."

"Yeah. But never a _fifth_ time."

Sakura shrugged. Fair.

Naruto smiled, watching her over the crate. Sakura looked at the paint so she wouldn't have to concentrate on being visibly flustered by his focus. She wasn't flustered because of many of her (STUPID) unrequited feelings, but mostly because it'd been so _long_. It was weird to fall into this conversation pattern. It was even more awkward to arrive at its end.

The silence stretched, a comfortable, natural lull. Or it should have been. Sakura was too…overly aware of herself. Her messy hair, the pallour of her skin sickly from pulling such a long shift under the not-exactly-friendly hospital lighting. She was tired and it showed. A little worn. Not exactly her most presentable. A little haggard, even. Her hair a little lifeless, her lips dry. Slightly (very) dehydrated.

Naruto, tired as he was, still looked a lot more pristine.

What was she doing here? This was so stupid.

What was she even supposed to _say_ to Naruto?

Where have you been all this time? See how easy this is? Why do you make me feel so awful for you not being there, and then you act so nice, like no time's passed? _Like you haven't completely shut me out._

"Hey, Sakura-chan?" She almost jolted, Naruto's mouth twisted, a little concerned. "Don't worry about it."

"Naruto…" ugh. He just had to – she clawed her fingers into the base of her neck and jerked at the hair, her shoulders aching from an entire night of hunching over work. "You really gotta do something about him. It's not healthy."

She looked up to see his mouth on the brink of a scowl, he lifted a hand and traced the edge of the paint tub's lid. Distractedly, he repeated. "Don't worry about it, Sakura."

He'd dropped the suffix. Sakura rocked from one foot to the other, she stopped. Blew out a gust of air. "I'm not – I'm not trying to _tell_ you how to do anything."

Then _don't._

Naruto didn't move to say that, even if she'd already basically set it all up for him. He shrugged. "I know."

"It's just…Boruto's – "

"A dumbass," Naruto suggested wearily, "A deviant. A rascal. A damn nuisance?"

"He's your kid."

"…I know that."

"I know you don't really mean those things."

"I don't. Sometimes I do," Naruto sighed, "I'm kind of at the end of my rope with the kid. There's no getting through to him. I've…Sakura, I've tried. What else do I do? I know I'm too busy with my duties to give him the attention he needs, but he _hates_ me using shadow-clones with him and when I do get time off he's still so bitter."

"You need to be around more often."

"I just don't get it. I grew up with _no_ parents. I'd have killed to have even five minutes with my mom or dad, but Boruto…we're here. We're both kicking. We're both trying to raise him best as we can, and he acts like I'm a shit father. I never _had_ a father."

"It's different," Sakura explained, a little uncomfortable with the subject matter but understanding it needed to be said. "You…you didn't grow up with them. I mean. My parents are still around and I can understand Boruto being bratty. My parents used to leave for ages on missions, accompanying merchants to Tea, ferrying cargo, you know…and when they'd come back, even if I missed them, there'd still be a part of me that resented that they'd leave me in the first place. I'd act out a little. I got used to it in time. But once you have your parents attention, going on without it, or with thinking that you're getting less of it than your peers get from _their _parents…it's not a great feeling. You have to understand where he's coming from."

"Fine," Naruto sighed, bereaved. "You tell me everything. If it doesn't work, then you punch him for me."

"I'm not going to punch your kid. Make no mistake, I'm often sorely tempted to, but I'm a Nice Person now."

"…You were always a nice person, Sakura-chan."

"Not very nice," Sakura amended, set. "But yeah. Put aside your paperwork for a bit?"

"For you?" Naruto had gestured expansively, and beamed that infectious grin again. "Any time."


End file.
